Ye Kefei
Among the many great powers in Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg are not too well known to Chinese, and we talk about these three small Western European countries, often only windmills, tulips, chocolate and other specialties and fashion objects. The combined size of these three countries is not as large as That of Guangdong Province, but the formation of Europe today is indispensable to their historical role, and the birth of the European Union and the Eurozone is more deeply related to these three small countries. At the same time, they are romantic, the land of Van Gogh and Vermeer, the home of Tintin and the Smurfs.
What makes these three countries unique? Writer Ye Kefei uses his travel experience, in-depth observation and erudition to take readers to visit those ancient cities and villages, museums and bars in the book "Details of Europe", to think about how these three countries have realized their potential, become unique, become the vanguard of the European Union and even the whole of Europe, and lead the world with culture, economy and education.
With the permission of the publisher, The Paper's private geography selects a section of the book about the Dutch tourist resort "Giethoorn" to see how it has changed from a dirty and messy village to "the most beautiful village in the world".
Details of Europe: From the Maritime Empire to the European Union; Ye Kefei/Author; Zhejiang People's Publishing House; 2021-10
The countryside should not be synonymous with "dirty mess"
I believe that if you search for recommended online articles such as "the most beautiful village in the world" on the Internet, giethoorn in the Netherlands can always be shortlisted. In the villages I have been to, it is indeed the first, and it is not as beautiful as the world. Here the small bridge flows water, a family quietly stands on a small island, each household has its own large garden, full of greenery, flowers blooming, quiet with leisurely. However, there are already too many words describing the beauty of Giethoorn, and today we are not talking about the scenery, but the planning.
The name Giethoorn really comes from The Croissant. Originally settled here by a group of coal miners, excavations have led to the formation of waterways and lakes. At the same time as digging coal, the workers also dug out many sheep horns in the ground, which are believed to be wild goats from the 12th century, hence the name Giethoorn.
Driving to Giethoorn, the car must be parked in the parking lot at the entrance of the village and then walked into the village. Because the village is full of waterways and small bridges, and the roads are limited to walking or cycling, cars can't drive in at all. The houses in the village are very distinctive, the roof is made of reeds, it is said to be very durable, not only can prevent rain and sun, but also keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer. It is precisely for this reason that the price of reeds, which were used by poor people who could not afford bricks and tiles, is now dozens of times the price of bricks and tiles.
The land prices in the Netherlands are now highly valued in the netherlands, so many of the occupants are middle-class people with stable occupations and good incomes.
The layman looks at the bustle, and the insider looks at the doorway. In a large number of "new rural" studies, Giethoorn is an iconic sample.
You know, this village was not originally suitable for living. The word coal mine itself has its own gray-headed and earthy face effect, and over-excavation makes the land barren, and the mud swamp is dense, and it is difficult for other plants to grow except for reeds. When the coal mines were exhausted, only the land that had been repeatedly excavated was left, and there were narrow ditches. Even if people widen the ditch and transform it into a canal in order to sail, the pattern of Giethoorn has not changed much, and the scenery is not as good as that of the average Dutch canal town.
However, such innate deficiencies actually created a most beautiful village in the world. How did Giethoorn become a sample of the "New Countryside"?
Houses in Giethoorn, The Netherlands
We know that in recent years, rural tourism is hot, and many people like to flaunt the original ecology and like to shout "old taste". In fact, I personally hate this statement, because most of the time, the so-called original ecology is backward and dirty. As for the "old taste", many people will say that they particularly like the green-skinned train, but the rough and dirty green-skinned train in the 1980s, especially the toilet that is almost impossible to get off the feet, is it really a good memory? The same is true in the countryside, even if there are beautiful old buildings in the Chinese countryside in the past, all kinds of dry toilets, feces and garbage are also uncomfortable, and they do not have the conditions for tourism. On the contrary, in recent years, the economic situation has improved, and some villages have improved their infrastructure to meet the conditions for rural tourism.
In other words, the formation of the most beautiful village is by no means what some people understand as "keeping the same as it was hundreds of years ago." It should first of all keep up with the times, at least it should be livable. The criterion for judging livability is simple: can a modern person choose to live here for a long time? If those who clamor for liking the pristine ecology only come to travel for two days and live for three days, it is called bitter days, then it is Ye Gonghaolong.
Therefore, the basis of the most beautiful village is the economy. If the economy does not develop, then the original ecology is equivalent to backwardness. Why do those curiosity hunters who like to talk about the original ecology, travel for two days, and leave a pile of garbage, ask for "keeping the original ecology" and let the villagers live in backwardness for a long time?
The Dutch economy is highly developed, the gap between rich and poor and the gap between urban and rural areas is extremely small, and the development of Giethoorn naturally has an economic foundation. Although the village is full of waterways, the river is extremely clear, the river surface reflects the houses, the road is covered with vegetation, flowers, and the European blue sky and white clouds, the idyllic scenery is fascinating.
Yes, the idea of "how good it should be to stay here for a long time" is the "quality" that the most beautiful village should have.
Indeed, anyone who has been to Europe will have a good impression of the countryside of Europe (especially traditional Western Europe). Fairytale houses, dense greenery, regular roads, blue skies and white clouds... All are standard.
The front of the house is beautifully kept neatly and neatly
Beautiful countryside depends not only on the economic base, but also on planning. The established developed countries have their own models, but there is a common important criterion: not only considering the living area, comfort and infrastructure, but also placing the entire countryside under the scope of the large landscape, combining elements such as natural landscapes and gardens with rural landscapes and water and soil management to achieve the effect of "artistic countryside".
I often see people praising the aesthetics of Europeans, such as "the flowers on the balcony are really beautiful", "the placement of vegetables and fruits in the market is too beautiful", "the shop signs and windows are too beautiful", and the private small gardens that can be seen everywhere in the countryside are synonymous with beauty. But are Europeans artists? Are they all from art schools? Of course not. So why do many people with a low cultural level still have fairly good aesthetic ability to make everything in life exquisite? This is inseparable from the daily experience. The environment that makes them heard is precisely the natural environment protected by the government and the livable environment created by the government.
As early as the 1950s, Dutch landscape architects began to participate in rural planning projects. These rural planning projects are placed under the operating system of land resource integration in the Netherlands.
Compared with countries such as Germany and France, which have more plains, rural planning in the Netherlands is much more difficult. This is because there are too many dutch canals and waterways that fragment the land. At the same time, traditional agriculture has shifted to mechanization, intensification and specialization, mechanized operations allow farmers to cultivate more land, and land fragmentation caused by too many waterways will inevitably create obstacles to mechanized operation.
Therefore, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, the Dutch government began to initiate land integration in the countryside. use to promote agricultural development. One of the most important links is land replacement, so that the land is relatively unified and reduces the development difficulties caused by excessive fragmentation. In 1938, the Netherlands promulgated the second edition of the Land Consolidation Law, which changed the general direction, but simplified the procedures and gave financial subsidies to farmers.
Of course, the main purpose of the promulgation of these two bills is to develop agriculture, and the rural landscape is not included in the planning. Therefore, while agriculture is developing, the landscape has been damaged to a certain extent.
In 1947, the Netherlands enacted the Vachlen Island Land Consolidation Act, which shifted from simple land redistribution to more complex land development plans. In 1954, the Netherlands enacted the third edition of the Land Consolidation Act, which, in addition to continuing to promote agriculture, also began to pay attention to horticulture, forestry and aquaculture. It is also in this version of the Land Consolidation Law that landscape planning must be clearly stipulated as part of the land consolidation plan. It was also after this that the industry of landscape architects became an important force in the rural planning system.
In the 1970s, Dutch society began to face up to the environmental problems brought about by economic development and called for the preservation of historical and ecological landscapes. In 1981, the Dutch government enacted the Arrangement of Rural Development Act, which, together with the previously enacted Outdoor Recreation Act and the Nature and Landscape Protection Act, formed the legal basis for rural development in the Netherlands for the next 20 years. Since then, the conservation of natural and historical landscapes has been placed on an equally important footing with agricultural production.
In this process, Giethoorn, which integrates natural landscape protection and tourism and leisure, is a classic example of Dutch rural planning. Below we will use Giethoorn and White Village to tell how the Dutch do rural planning.
Plan the original ecological countryside
For a long time, Giethoorn has not been able to enjoy the dividends of Dutch economic development because of its poor land, excessive river channels, and many wetlands, inconvenient transportation, and far from the metropolis, and even ended up as an island that relies on traditional agriculture to survive.
According to the data, in 1969, Giethoorn began to prepare for planning. In 1974, the local Land Development Committee was established and a land development plan was formulated. The plan identifies land for agricultural production and nature conservation, as well as the use of waterways and road construction schemes.
In this process, Giethoorn reflects the most important point in the construction of the Dutch countryside: from the bottom up, the countryside is pluralistic and co-governed. In layman's terms, residents are not only the main force of rural construction, but also the shapers of the landscape, the protectors of the environment, and the sharers of benefits.
China's rural construction needs to be improved at this point. The path of China's rural construction is relatively simple, mainly taking the road of "towns imitating cities, and villages imitating towns", and finally it is easy to form a situation of "one side of a thousand cities" and "one side of a thousand villages". In this process, the countryside is often at the end of the entire planning system, does not have the qualifications to formulate rural planning independently, and can only accept the arrangements of the superior, resulting in the planning plan being easily divorced from reality and unable to fit in with the characteristics of the countryside itself.
Even in some Chinese villages where tourism is well developed, there are problems. The whole village has become a scenic spot, and since the collection of tickets, the village is full of shops and restaurants, but there are no residents. On the one hand, this destroys the scenery and livable environment of the countryside itself, on the other hand, because outsiders are aimed at making money, it is difficult to consider the sustainable development of the countryside, and it is inevitable to exhaust the fish.
Giethoorn was different, and to this day it is still a village made up of a vast majority of farmers and some new middle-class households. Here the land is the inhabitants, the houses are the inhabitants, the gardens are the inhabitants, the river channels are the inhabitants... In order to protect private property, residents will take the initiative to protect the village and maintain its inherent style.
I like to measure everywhere I go, and naturally prefer to walk in Giethoorn. Of course, there are also many tourists who choose to take a boat tour, walking on the path, and from time to time you can see the boats on the canal slowly sailing by.
There are Giethoorn houses with "whispering boats" parked in front of the door
Even with cruise ships that are commonplace in Europe, Giethoorn takes great pains to create a boutique. At present, the cruise ship used in Giethoorn is a unique local "whispering boat". It is a traditional punt boat, the hull is open, the maximum width is more than 1 meter, the stern is equipped with a silent electric motor, controlled by the steering wheel, the boat is quiet. This kind of boat is battery-powered and can drive for 6-8 hours at a time. It is not only small and silent, but also easy to operate, so there is no need for a professional helmsman, and it is easy for tourists to get started.
When tourism was first developed, Giethoorn used human-powered punts and canoes. In the middle of the 20th century, with the advancement of technology, Giethoorn began to use fuel-fired electromechanical ships. By the 1970s, Giethoorn began to use a new type of electric boat for power storage, which is now the "whispering boat".
For a long time, these three types of boats existed simultaneously in Giethoorn.
In 1992, high-frequency fuel-fired electromechanical boats entered Giethoorn, and although the speed of such boats could reach 50 kilometers per hour, they were extremely noisy, causing many conflicts between tourists and residents. After repeatedly consulting the residents, Giethoorn finally decided to ban fuel mechanical and electrical boats from entering the waterway of Giethoorn Village, and cruise ships used "whispering boats".
Today, Giethoorn is very quiet, and all you can hear is the sound of running water and birds. In this village, the nightlife you can experience is just a few quiet bars. There are only one or two craft shops here, and they are very different from the usual tourist souvenir shops. There was no one shouting for business, and there wasn't any "don't miss it when you walk by."
It is this small, quiet village that receives 800,000 international tourists every year, accounting for 5% of the total number of international tourists in the Netherlands, a large tourist country. Among them, Chinese tourists who like small bridges and flowing water are particularly fond of Giethoorn, and of the 300,000 Chinese tourists who visit the Netherlands every year, 2/3 of them will visit Giethoorn. It has been estimated that Chinese tourists to Giethoorn alone generate 29 million euros a year in economic benefits for the province of Issel, where Giethoorn is located.
Chinese tourists love Giethoorn, on the one hand, because of the feelings of small bridges and flowing water, on the other hand, it is also related to the operation of Giethoorn. In 2015, Giethoorn launched the "Hello, Netherlands" documentary for the Chinese tourism market, showing the style of Giethoorn through the experience of a Chinese girl looking for a "paradise". The documentary immediately made Giethoorn synonymous with "paradise" and also became an internet celebrity village in the eyes of Chinese.
Editor-in-Charge: Qian Chengxi
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang