Qeparo

The Riviera at its quietest — a stone village above, a slow beach below, a castle bay next door

Qeparo is two villages wearing one name. On the shore, a low-key line of guesthouses and tavernas along a pebble beach that never quite fills, even in August. Three kilometres up the mountain, Old Qeparo: an amphitheatre of stone houses and lanes around a church square, half-abandoned in the emigration years and now being brought back, house by house, as one of the Riviera's most atmospheric hill villages.

The setting explains the appeal. Olive terraces — some of the oldest groves on the coast — step down from the old village to the sea, and the great bay of Porto Palermo opens immediately to the north, its Ali Pasha fortress guarding water so sheltered it reads like a lake. Himara's restaurants are ten minutes up the road; Borsh's endless beach ten minutes down it.

Qeparo is the choice for travellers who want the Riviera before the Riviera — mornings that start with a swim off an uncrowded beach, evenings on a stone terrace with the lights of fishing boats below. Long-tail today, and quietly gaining the villas to match.

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