The village of Nata is found east of the town of Paphos. It is 4 kilometers away from the village of Anarita and it is built on the western shore of the Xeros river, on the peak of a high hill.
In order to get to Nata, we traveled towards the area of the Military base of Anarita (KEN) and after we left it behind us, we found a narrow street of about 10 feet wide without footholds which at sometimes took us down to the riverbed of the tributary of Xeros and sometimes it took us up to the peak of the dunes that characterise the landscape.
After a 10 minute journey, the narrow, sinuous road took us to the centre of the village. There, on a small, paved square, there is everything that characterises a Cypriot community.
An open air, old olive mill is the first thing we found and opposite it, the community park. A little further we saw the small amphitheatre and next to it, the monument dedicated to the dead Heroes of Nata. Opposite these, was the cultural center and east, the church of Agios Nicolaos and in the centre of the square, a perennial Pine tree covering a great part of it with its huge branches.
The old village centre is composed of ancient mansions built of stone. The majority of them have two levels. Even though as a village it is not included in the mountain villages of Cyprus, the traditional architecture of these houses follows the architecture found in mountain areas.
The same type of architecture can be found in the abandoned, neighboring village, Foinikas. It is possible that the villagers of Nata have been influenced by this architecture. Thus you can see houses entirely built of stone, with a central entrance taking you to an internal, big yard. Externally, there are windows only on the upper floor, and they are very small. This helps us realise that the village was raided by pirates or by the Templar Knights that had their administration in Foinikas.
In neighborhoods you can see many abandoned, ruined houses. However, you can see some at a renovation stage and a lot more that have already been renovated and inhabited. The great majority of residents consists of foreigners which have either built new villas or have renovated the old mansions.
From the location where the village is built, you can have panoramic images of the beautiful valley of the Xeros river. The valley has great width, which at some points exceeds 600 metres.
People created organised fruit tree plantations on these fertile, flat areas of land created by the river. At a very small distance from these, there is a huge dam of Asprogkremos, whose water irrigates the plantations thus contributing to the development of the community.
Northeast of the village, at a distance of 3 kilometres from the centre, there is an ancient chapel dedicated to Kyra Eleousa. It is built of the western shore of the rier among hundreds of fruit bearing trees.
Nata has a strange, eerie beauty that “provokes” you to observe it. The high, gray sand hills are naked from any plantations that are objects of admiration if you think that all of this, somedays, many millions of year ago, were part of the depth of the Tethys sea.
Nata, like all the villages of the Paphos district, is uncared for by the government and the first ones to suffer are the settlers themselves. The road network to and from the village is found in a dramatically bad condition. There are points that due to the composition of the ground, have taken such an angle towards the ravine that it scares you to pass it. The cracks in the asphalt give you the impression that the road will collapse from one moment to another.
The “slogan” and the justification of all the governments that passed form the first day of the island’s independence until today making Paphos further than the rest of Cyprus should stop if we want to have destinations like Nata.
