Cyprus has grown at a phenomenal rate over the past two decades and so has Paphos.
It is really pleasing to see the appearance of well-designed green areas and small parks within the various housing projects.
However, the largest and most fondly remembered park is the Paphos Town Park directly behind the Town Hall. In days gone by, you could wander into the park out of the heat of the day and sit in tranquil shade, where students lay under the trees cramming for their final exams, lovers walked hand in hand stealing a kiss.
Beyond, children played in the playground area under the shade of the pefkos trees. On Sundays, the park was alive with colour as the various foreign worker groups met for picnics and social gatherings and gossip-swapping.
Some time ago, the authorities added to the ambience of the park by creating modernistic divisions with pathway lighting; a small theatre area was also created which could be used for evening entertainment. All in all a little piece of paradise away from the roar of traffic, the smell of petrol and dust of the summer.
Alas, the land does not belong to the local authorities but to that powerful company the Greek Orthodox Church! Its CEO, the Bishop Of Paphos, has now decided that Paphos needs a Cathedral and has requested its land back to enable the bulldozers to get moving and the concrete mixers churning and to build the cathedral on the parkland.
Who am I to argue with such an august personage? However, I could point out that Paphos has many small, large and quite gigantic churches which, whenever I step inside, seem not to be overflowing to capacity.
It is quite ironic that the properties surrounding the park have been restored and enhanced over the years and look extremely beautiful whilst the park area itself lies deteriorating, untouched by those who once laboured to look after it and is now seemingly only attended by the creatures of the night – vandals and so-called wall artists.
Are we to really lose this little bit of earthly paradise for a promised heavenly paradise? What a cockeyed world this has become.
Geoff Unsworth,
Paphos
