After two successive delays by the contractor – which the mayor of Chania Panagiotis Simandirakis had described in the face of popular criticism as “allowed by the contract” – the Municipal Garden of Chania, the Kipos, finally opened its gates to the public on Friday 31st March. Access is still limited. Only the entrances on Tzanagaki Street are open; those on Andreas Papandreou near the Clock Tower and on Ploumidaki Street, which connects with the Park of Peace and Friendship, remain closed. The south-east corner, which contains the Clock Tower and the Kipos Summer Cinema, is not completed and is partitioned off. It will contain a landscaped area including a small lake. The historic Kipos Café is now open, although it does not yet have its pergola, but there are umbrellas to provide shade.
A visit on Monday morning nevertheless made a good initial impression. The area formerly taken up by the animal enclosures has now become a well-appointed children’s play area. There are large areas of fresh turf setting off the monumental trees which have been retained, colourful accents of flowering bedding plants, and paved walkways with a central tiled strip to guide blind or visually-impaired visitors. Wooden benches lining the walkways and set around the trunks of some of the smaller trees provide ample seating in the shade.
Although there was no sign of activity in the fenced-off, uncompleted portion, the rest of the garden was busy, with staff watering the shrubs and completing the low-level plantings, while in the café the former regulars were being greeted by their familiar waiters and settling back into their daily routine.
The reactions of citizens interviewed by the Haniotika Nea have on the whole been positive, though some said that they had expected a more ambitious transformation, others thought the play area was too small, and another mourned the loss of of the animals. One lady at least was pleased with the large number of benches. Given the rather tired air that the garden had previously, and the fact that some of its main attractions are yet to be open to the public, it seems likely that the finished article will soon come to be seen as an asset to the city, and an oasis of calm in the busy centre, where the problem of too much traffic has yet to be resolved.
