英语翻译On Venice’s Grand Canal in a KayakAudrey Lynn Gray for T

英语翻译
On Venice’s Grand Canal in a Kayak
Audrey Lynn Gray for The New York Times
THEY helped fleeing Romans evade Attila the Hun and held a glittering city aloft for more than 1,500 years.But the wooden pilings rising out of the Grand Canal in Venice are so decayed that as we clung to them one afternoon it wasn’t at all clear whether they would be sturdy enough to prevent us from capsizing into its murky waters.
It was rush hour in Venice,so the canal’s usual tumult of crosscurrents and tides was churning with the wake of water taxis,ferries and delivery boats.Each volley of waves slapped against the side of the inflatable kayak we were using to cross Italy’s most storied waterway; the pilings were our best chance to avoid being immersed in it.
This probably wasn’t quite what my girlfriend,Audrey Lynn Gray,had in mind when we first started thinking about a trip to Venice.After scouring guidebooks,we found that the logical thing seemed to be to move about the city like other tourists:by foot,vaporetto (water bus) and the occasional overpriced gondola ride.
But as novice canoers,we were intrigued by the thought of exploring the waterways ourselves.We spent hours researching where and how to rent a small craft in Venice but found that the combination of Italian bureaucracy and the mighty gondolier lobby has made it virtually impossible.
Our solution?An inflatable kayak that’s portable enough to check as luggage yet sturdy enough to hold 500 pounds and withstand the rigors of Class II rapids.Getting it there was easy because it weighs just 32 pounds and tucks into a suitcase-sized tote bag (along with a foot pump).And it was surprisingly affordable:our two-person kayak,by West Marine,retails for $699,but we found one brand-new on eBay for $163.44,about the price of a 45-minute gondola ride.
The legalities of using your own boat in Venice are ambiguous.Part of the official Venetian tourist Web site,states that only city residents may operate a boat in the canals,but the local rowers insist that restriction is enforced only regarding motorcraft.(We encountered more than a dozen police boats and attracted nothing more than a smile and a bemused shake of the head.)

On Venice’s Grand Canal in a Kayak
荡舟威尼斯大运河
THEY helped fleeing Romans evade Attila the Hun and held a glittering city aloft for more than 1,500 years.But the wooden pilings rising out of the Grand Canal in Venice are so decayed that as we clung to them one afternoon it wasn’t at all clear whether they would be sturdy enough to prevent us from capsizing into its murky waters.它们曾经帮助罗马逃兵逃脱匈奴,还帮助支撑起了一个光彩夺目的城市,足足超过了1500年.但是那些威尼斯大运河上突起的木桩是如此破旧,使得我们在某天下午攀爬它们时还在担心木桩是否够坚固,别把我们掉进深深的水中.