Would you prefer millions of stars to just 5? Then come and pay us a visit. Casa Payer reminds us of an old boat. Join us aboard to experience life in the woods.
Luca and Paola
Casa Payer is a suggestive stone farmhouse and is run in the spirit of veganism.
It is our personal life project, one that we share with our guests, offering them ecologically sustainable holidays and homemade plant-based cooking. [Read more ]
Casa Payer is an INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE: find out how we did it.
The spaces bordering the woods and our presence have become a Wood Garden. Cultivated ornamental plants, fruit trees and herbs co-exist with the wild ones: a contamination of wild and domestic. You can see the vegetable garden from the balcony of the solarium or enter it as if in a garden.
Every day we offer healthy, fresh and tasty homemade plant based food made from seasonal recipes. We take great care in selecting the ingredients and in their preparation: each is carefully sourced from local suppliers and producers. Some of the fruit, vegetables and herbs we use grow in our own kitchen garden or close to the house.
If you are a guest at Casa Payer, you can join with others to take part in the Saturday bread making activity: kneading the organic, stone-milled flour in company. We cook the bread and pizzas in our large wood-burning oven, using logs obtained during the winter clearing.
It’s doing without expectations. It’s getting beyond your comfort zone and breaking the habit of being yourself, changing your point of observation. Idleness and contemplation play an integral role. Aand also walking barefoot to re-establish contact with the Earth and the self, recharging while listening to the sound of the stream and reverting to nomadic gatherer.
There are many places you can explore, either in company or alone: the herb garden, the courtyard with its solarium, the lawn, the hammocks in the birch trees, the covered terraces, the container vegetable garden, the small lounge overlooking the woods, where we serve breakfast and other meals, and Sala Mantra (the panoramic barn).
The beauty of Casa Payer is that you are already on a green itinerary, no adornment, no fancy names, just a secluded territory, returned to wilderness since the days when agriculture opted for the more accommodating lowlands. Its hilly position offers walks for all abilities. This is a Valdese valley; its history is often told referring to places in nature.
When you arrive by car, be careful not to squash Frogs and Salamanders along the track through the woods. In winter, titmice, robins and other feathered friends come to peck at the bread and seeds that we hang out for them on branches close to the house, especially when it snows. We plant numerous plants that carry berries: they are beautiful, and attract a lot of birds for their fruit.
Casa Payer is made of Woods: the trees, the stone and the clay soil of the surrounding land. We renovated it honouring the original building techniques, observing green-building criteria and with the desire to inhabit this ancient place that vibrates with the ancestral energy of the stone and the harmony of the wood.
Paola and I, once travellers of Asia, finally decided to stop travelling and to become hosts ourselves, to put down roots in a wood and share our rural vegan lifestyle with our guests, in total harmony with the environment.
And so Casa Payer, B&B and beloved home was conceived. Living in the woods is our journey into the wilderness. It’s on the trail of this ancient dwelling, in a wood garden, that our journey begins, just one kilometer beyond the “edge of the world”.
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Ecco arrivata la farina di castagne. Un lavoro immenso. Potrebbe tranquillamente essere un presidio Slow Food.
Le abbiamo raccolte sane e belle.
Sono state seccate per quaranta giorni in un grande capanno di lamiera sospese su una griglia con sotto un fuoco lento alimentato a legna di castagno.
Poi battute con un antico attrezzo a batacchi di legno per eliminare le bucce e infine macinate.
Nessuna industria e pochi chilometri tra raccolta, essiccamento e macinazione.
I costi sono elevati. Quanto? Per 150 chili di castagne 7 chili e mezzo di farina profumatissima e dolce che stamattina abbiamo messo sotto vuoto per garantire tutte le qualità.
Non sappiamo ancora se il prossimo anno si potrà ripetere. Osvaldo che aveva le conoscenze necessarie è mancato, la moglie, i figli e i nipoti dovrebbero prendere in mano le conoscenze. Lavori che vanno e che vengono e che sanno di antico.
Alla sera le prime fioriture sono ancora più appariscenti e certi fiori, come la magnolia stellata, profuma più che di giorno.
Il bosco non è più dormiente, si intravedono prime verdissime gemme anche se nella totalità appare spoglio.
È un momento di passaggio molto sentito! Gli uccelli sono indaffarati e cantano a più non posso. Ecco il segnale del risveglio!
In questi giorni il vento è stato molto forte al punto da decidere di spostare la panificazione a oggi. Troppo pericoloso un fuoco acceso ma oltre quello il vento mi spostava e stanotte ha fatto volare le sedie. Il vento pota i rami e fa cadere le piante malate o poco ben piantate. Quanti "crasch!" Abbiamo sentito in questi due giorni. Buona domenica a tutti.
Buona domenica anche a voi.Saggia idea.Buona panificazione.
