





A sea-front villa twenty metres above a secret cove
Villa Camelia stands on the rock some twenty metres above its own small cove on the Kassiopi shoreline, with steps cut down to the water and nothing between the terrace and the strait but open blue. It is a sea-front house for eight — four bedrooms — where the day is organised around swimming off your own access point rather than driving to a beach. The Albanian mountains sit close across the water, near enough to read the light changing on them through the day, and the swimming is the deep, glass-clear kind the north-east is known for. Kassiopi village and harbour are close enough for dinner and provisions, so you get the seclusion of a private cove with the reassurance of a working village nearby. At around €530 a night it is one of the better-value sea-front positions on this coast.
Four bedrooms sleeping eight, arranged to face the sea, with a pool terrace and outdoor dining set above the private cove. The house is built into the slope — expect steps between levels and down to the water, which is the price of a true water's-edge position.
Interiors are comfortable and unfussy; the view does the work.
The defining feature is direct sea access — a private set of steps from the garden down to a small cove for swimming and snorkelling straight off the rocks, into some of the clearest water on the island.
From nearby Kassiopi harbour you can hire a self-drive boat for the day, and by sea you can reach Agni's tavernas, Kouloura's Byzantine harbour and Kerasia in well under an hour.
Kassiopi's harbour tavernas are a short drive or a long walk, offering the full spread of grilled fish, Corfiot sofrito and pastitsada.
For a set-piece lunch, take the boat south to Agni Bay, where three tavernas — Taverna Agni, Nikolas and Toula's — sit side by side on the shingle; several will send a boat to collect dinner guests.