Paphos Holiday Video

[Dominic]

This is cool! An old film of a Paphos Holiday.

This was posted on the Hallouminati page, but we had to share it too.

[Mirek]

Doesnt it look unspoilt?

How about a guess the year competition??

I would hazard a guess @ 1992

[cyprusmax47]

Thank you for posting that video.

If you compare it with Dominic's videos one can see what ugly place Paphos was 40 years ago. The ancient site where they exercised with their mopeds for example and now....! I stayed in the same Daphne Hotel in 1977 and 1978 and decided that Paphos was not my favourite place and stayed away.
Latchi area was what I liked much more with it's quiet fishing harbour and fish taverns with excellent fresh food. In the end I built my first house in that area in 1984 and stayed since then in Cyprus for good.

Max

[Kili01]

A lot ofPaphos area was undeveloped and natural back when the video was shot. Basically, Paphos was a backwater and had for a long time been very poor. To get to Paphos from Nicosia, used to take a day, and even the journey from Limassol to Paphos could take anywhere between 2 to 4 hours on the old road (now the B6). So it wasn’t surprising that few people would want or need to go there. So, it wasn’t until after the Turkish invasion in 1976 that having lost both Famagusta and Kyrenia, that attention turned to trying to create a new holiday venue in Paphos. So what you see today has mainly been built over the years since then. The first time I visited in1969, Paphos had very little built around the old fishing harbour. The town ( now the Old Town) was separate and built on the top of the rocky scarp. Between the two was farmland. In the early 1990’s when I came back, there were a few hotels built on the coast. The Annabelle, was new and the Porto Paphos, were two of them. There were shops slong the harbour front, then the road by the rocky beach. There was a low harbour wall.
Personally, I liked the place very much then. It was small, tourists were there, but not en masses. The owners of shops and tavernas were all Cypriots, hands on. It was friendly, and very safe. You didn’t need to lock your car in Paphos.
Personally, although the place was ready for some extra hotels and some upgrading of shops and services, it could have been done better. These days the CTA ( or its sucessor) wants to build a 5 star resort to attract quality tourism. But the way it was developed concentrated on low end mass tourism.So thats what was built. Without much thought for good design or planning. Apparently, Max and others on here are vociferously in favour of all things ‘modern’
I am too. But I like good design, materials and good finish. That’s whats missing. I don’t rave about the look of the faceless identikit builds around much of the harbour. You could be anywhere.It doesn’t look more Mediterranean or Greek and lacks style. It’s a pity as Paphos was a blank canvas and could have been built to be much more attractive.
However, it is what it is. For people who arrived here more recently, they have nothing to compare and if its what the modern tourist likes then it is fullfilling its purpose.
Dee

[Yioula]

Paphos was very rustic when I first visited in the early 80s tourism in it’s infancy only so many flights a week was then permitted into Paphos Airport, the only Hotels was the Paphos Beach The Annabelle (before extension) Cypria Maris a great favourite of the locals on a Saturday night and the Kissos and the Cynthiana Beach there were several apartments in and around
Coral Bay has no facilities just a handful of wooden sunbeds but the “tourist beach” was there and beyond all the locals would go
Year on Year more development began the cousins back in the U.K. could see there cousins here in Cyprus starting to reap the rewards from their Taverna’s, so many more returned back to the island
Cyprus joining the EU brought more and more development and the island became more and more European
Paphos is no longer rustic and is like most Mediterranean tourist areas it has been developed to cater for mass tourism

Going back to the video it’s early 90s I guess

[jagwheels]

Our first holiday in Cyprus was to an allegedly 4* hotel in Limmasol. Not impressed at all with the cleanliness etc & vowed this would be our last visit. As luck would have it a Swedish couple arrived on our second week who came on spec & stayed first in Paphos & said how much better it was so we decided to give it another go. Having said this I am sure things have changed at the first hotel we visited. 18 visits later speaks for itself & the real bonus was meeting up with some members, most of whom are still on PL. We planned to return this Sep or Oct but events have sadly put that decision
on hold

[Dominic]

Apparently it was recorded in 1990.

[Kili01]

Yes, that’s about right for my memories of that period.
Paphos was a quiet, attractive small town to visit with little traffic.Mind you, there was no Mall, no supermarkets and if my memory is right no traffic lights either! Though the first one built was Papas in Ellados Ave towards the end of the ‘90’s,
The new Paphos General hospital was built in the 1990’s. Someone will remember which year it was finished. Then it was well thought of and a vast improvement on the old one. There were no private hospitals.
There was no motorway either.
Dee

[clive of payia]

At 77 years old, the memory isn't what it used to be. I do remember coming to Paphos and sometimes Peyia in 1961 as a young soldier. The Tomb of the Kings road was a single track road and vehicles passed each other by each moving over on to the dirt verge. Not unusual to see dead donkeys laying on the road side flogged to death. Few private dwellings had electricity. Telephones were for the rich, police etc. and civil servants. Prewar Leyland buses were the preferred mode of transport 200 mils from Episkopi to Peyia if I remember correctly? Currency was then Cyprus Pound & mils. A day out in Paphos was just a day out as their were no exotic diversions for young men to indulge in - well, we never found any - Limassol was the place for that. The military still had to go out in fours as their were still some angry EOKA people about. Being a united island the north provided an entirely different environment - more olive trees. RAF Nicosia took most of the commercial flights, Akrotiri, built in mid-1950's was military only. I've lived here now in Peyia for 18 years and seen the massive development, not all of it good. Happy days.