Cultural and culinary tour in Piedmont, Italy

Environment

We are committed to preserving our heritage in this alpine environment by using natural and environmentally safe cleaning products, low energy consuming light bulbs, we compost our organic waste with the help of composting worms. We recycle our glass, plastic, paper and metal and have bins to encourage our guests to do the same. We have an organic garden that we try to utilize as much as possible.

We joined Wwoof (World Wide Organic Opportunities) to partner with volunteers to teach and share organic gardening practices as we work side by side in our garden. We heat completely with wood and cut wood on our own property managing our forest for over three generations in our family. We helped initiate and are involved with the local CAI association, a walking and alpine organization, to clean, sign and maintain our local alpine paths thereby helping to keep the woods clean and maintained. We are involved with the restocking of our local mountain stream with native trout. We are committed to eco-friendly practices.

Community

We live in a small alpine community that relies on each other to help maintain our community which has lost many jobs over the years. We created "TEM", which is our Sustainable Mountain Tourism association that grew out of our desire to include small businesses, organic food producers and artisans that strive to preserve and enhance rural community life.

We are lifetime members of "Slow Food", a food movement that was born in nearby Alba, whose basic philosophy is in alignment with ours. Slow Food International states, "We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to the pleasure of good food and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that makes this pleasure possible. Our association believes and promotes the recognition of the strong connections between plate, planet, people and culture."

We buy local and shop in our small businesses and local outdoor food markets, avoiding the large supermarket except for any items that we are unable to find anywhere else. We support small cheese makers; butcher, beer crafters, vintners and liqueur producers that still pay mountain residents to not only gather necessary herbs, but to protect the natural habitat as well as providing much needed jobs. We promote local artisans. Through our collective effort we strive to build a healthy community through sound economic and ecological practices. Your visit helps us take another step along that path.