I am delighted to
say that the new pier at Protaras is now finished and ready for visitors. I have long been a fan of the sea-side
leisure pier and I think this new one is a nice construction, which adds a lot
of character to the holiday resort. The new pier has an accompanying walkway,
spanning the length of the beach up to Fig Tree Bay, giving direct access to
the large, luxurious hotels along the sea front. With some of the best beaches
in Cyprus, Protaras has so much to offer, for both residents of the island and
a holiday makers.
The design of the pier is a traditional wooden
structure and does reflect the early piers which first made an appearance on
the Isle of White, off the English coast, with Ryde Pier in 1814. This pier was
originally built for landing traffic from the ferries but amusements and refreshments
were also added at a later date, making it the first fun pier for public use.
The early pleasure piers were probably at
their most fashionable in the Victorian era in England and Wales. The most notable
being the two piers at Brighton in East Sussex and three at Blackpool in
Lancashire. Unfortunately many of the old British piers have fallen into disuse
from neglect in recent years, and I have recently signed a petition to save the
pier at Whitby, North Yorkshire, which is slowly being destroyed by neglect.
My favourite pier is still, the now derelict,
West Pier in Brighton, which was destroyed by fire and storms. I believe there
was something almost magical about it, and it was there I chose to set the
nightmare sequence in my novel The Main Line Murders (it is actually set in
Cramwell a fictional town in the north east of England but I borrowed the
pier!)
The popularity of the pleasure piers spread
across the world with notable piers at Scheveningen in the coastal town of The Hague in the Netherlands, (which
was built in 1961 to replace the original lost in the war in 1944) which has a
wonderful panoramic observational tower; and the Rolls Royce of piers, which is in my opinion, the Blankenberge
Pier in Belgium.
If you are visiting Protaras, I hope
you enjoy the pier and new walkways as much as I did. It is wonderful to see
new piers being built at a time when so many others have been left to decay.
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