Gianna Tavernaro, the farmer poet

“My dream is to live in a matchbox. All I need is a lit fireplace and two wooden chairs: one for me and one for those who come to visit me." Gianna has short, graying hair, and this is how she explains - very simply - her idea of happiness. After many years of living with her daughters Rita and Lucia and of running Malga Canali and of making it renowned, she has decided to give the girls space for their youthful passions by stepping aside and by starting her new project in 2016. The mountain teaches us to wait and understand when it is the right time to make decisions and above all to accept changes. This moment came and she decided to start the tiny B&B El camin che fuma (literally,the smoking chimney, i.e. the lit fireplace), converting a small and partially abandoned mountain farm with her husband Cornelius. Here it is, the matchbox that Gianna so longed for, a real refuge in the woods on the road to Passo Cereda, that smells good, made of mountain memories and tales and a great desire to share them. It is a magical place made of simple and authentic things: the proverbial hospitality of mountain people, the animals, the scents of the earth, the attention to every detail. A place where it is nice to arrive and from which it is difficult to leave. It took a lot of hard work to get the farm’s fireplace going again, but now that the air smells of larch and that the animals have returned to the stable, Gianna can welcome guests in her refuge at the foot of the Pale di San Martino range she loves so much. Few and well-kept rooms, many books to read and browse in the library where you can relax with a good cup of herbal tea. Here the only network to be found is that of authentic contacts - the Internet does not exist. At Gianna’s, you enter as a guest and you exit as a friend.