Guesthouse – Le Sciare

Le Sciare is the national headquarters of Social Advancement’s Association “Alveare”.

It is therefore the place for meetings of associated headquarters’ managing boards, for conferences promoted by the association, and for ensuring a possible common old age to women working for Alveare, and their friends.
Therefore, our Guesthouse is not just a B & B like many others, open to anyone: it is only for women, and particularly for the women who share the project of the association, and appreciate and support its intents. For this reason we do not ask prices for the rooms but free contributions, starting from a minimum for each room or accommodation. Contributions, to Le Sciare for the association, that will allow other activities’ impulse in the area.

There are several rooms for our guests. Most of them (Aria, Mantagnata, Brunese, Stelle, Mangiatoia, Palme) are in the Guesthouse, which is part of the Masseria, inside the walls. A living room and a large collective kitchen, with air-conditioning, are available to the guests. They can obviously access all gardens, passages, patios, swimming-pool, orchard, vegetable garden, pine forest… All the rooms are spacious and furnished with care, with typical vaulted ceilings. All have an en suite bathroom and shower, heating, Internet, telephone, TV, mosquito nets at the doors and windows, an inner phone to contact other rooms and the residents’ houses, and a remote control to open the entrance gate.

Each room opens into a veranda furnished with paintings, sofas or benches, tables and chairs for reading, breakfast or conversation. Each has a name, for reasons we are going to see.

Aria (Air)

It is the room on the North East corner, overlooking the alley to the sea on one side, and the horses’ paddocks and pastures on an other, and the gardens on the third. It is decorated in shades of blue, very large, with a king-size bed and two armchairs, an inlaid marble table, a double wardrobe, a stylish mini-bar. It has individual air-conditioning, and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub. Its name comes from being exposed to the breezes, from all parts of the compass. It has a connecting door to the Mantagnata, for stays of three or four friends wishing total privacy while maintaining close contact. With Mantagnata it shares a veranda with a large table, six chairs, little tables and a bench. As a Milanese friend who stayed in Aria for weeks said: “it is a mansion, a sail with three winds. From one window, there is Tuscany, horses and goats, from the other the Old Appian Way leading to the main gate with a sun and a moon, and the sea wind.”

Mantagnata (Shelter)

Masseria Le Sciare

A “mantagnata” is a place sheltered from the wind and the rain, and from the hottest sun.It is a large master bedroom decorated in shades of beige and brown, with a king-size bed, a large marble table, and individual air-conditioning. It opens into the veranda and the entrance garden, the fountain and the Arches’ pergola. It communicates with Aria, and shares its veranda.

Brunese

Masseria Le Sciare

The name comes from the Sciara (witch) Brunese, whose legend we tell in Da dove viene il nome del paese Melendugno? in the page Domande. It is a large bedroom in shades of sea green, for eight women.

Overlooking the Garden of the Banana Trees, in front of the path leading to the swimming-pool, it is cool in summer and warm during the winter months.

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STELLE (STARS)

A mini-suite in blue colour, for four women, it has two communicating master rooms. In the first one there are the worktable and a wardrobe.

In the second one, the dark blue ceiling is decorated with stars, hence its name. We wanted its vaults painted like that because when we started the restoration works, the roof had collapsed and the ruined walls seemed to enclose the starry sky.

Mangiatoia (Manger)

Masseria Le Sciare

When Le Sciare was a productive farm with domestic animals and stables, this was the main manger for the cows. It is now a master room, furnished in shades of orange. There a large worktable, chairs, and a capacious cupboard.

Slightly smaller than Aria or Mantagnata, still very comfortable, it feels safe, warm and cosy. Its veranda is very quiet, closed on one side by the outer walls with a passage to Le Palme apartment.

Prato

Masseria Le Sciare

E’ la camera per ospiti della casa La Fonte.
La Fonte e la Foresteria sono collegate da un passaggio di archi, in cui si trovano sia il salone della Foresteria sia questa stanza. Arredata con cura e molto luminosa, ha due porte finestre sui giardini. Da qui il suo nome.

Quando non è occupata è a disposizione delle ospiti della Foresteria per guardare la televisione o lavorare al computer.

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Palme (Palms)

A real apartment for four or five occupants, its name comes from the palm trees in the front garden. It can be accessed from the main entrance through the Guesthouse gardens, or from the rear of the fortification – next to the outer staircase leading to the rooftops. From there, you can see a wide panorama of fields, forests and sea, and in clear evenings, and they are often clear, spectacular sunsets and the Milky Way. Palme has its own veranda, with a garden, a big table and chairs.

In the apartment, there is a spacious country kitchen, fully furnished, and a table for six, with a sofa that turns into a single bed, for a fifth occupier. A door leads to a first master bedroom, in the shades of green, with work desk, two valuable wardrobes, chairs. From this room you enter the second one, with a double bed and another wardrobe. Both rooms have their own entrance to the bathroom. From the kitchen a door leads to a small patio, with a table and chairs, in front of the Torretta Margherita, and the entrance into the second bedroom, allowing greater autonomy and privacy to its occupants. Men accompanying the guests of Le Sciare can stay at Palme.

Bosco

Masseria Le Sciare

The apartment The Wood has its own private entrance, furnished with a large and fresh veranda overlooking a beautiful garden and the road leading to the pine forest. It consists of two double bedrooms (Willow and Claudia), a single bedroom (Debbie), a study with Internet line, a spacious kitchen furnished and equipped with everything you need, a bathroom, and hallway spaces
It’s also available for the male guests accompanying friends of Le Sciare. You can take, being five, the whole apartment. Or a single room.

Salice

Masseria Le Sciare

Claudia

Masseria Le Sciare

Debbie

Masseria Le Sciare

Of course, kitchen, bathroom, closet and outdoor areas are to be shared with the other guests of The Woods.

Torretta (Tower Marguerite)

The former water tower takes its name from our friend Margherita Tosi, who first visited us at Le Sciare, when the restoration was just starting. Right at the edge of the pine forest, a few steps away from the outer walls, it has two floors and plenty of space around it, next to the horses’ grounds and the alley towards the main entrance. Downstairs there is a kitchen – in shades of green, fully equipped, and a spacious bathroom. Upstairs, a bedroom with a wardrobe and a desk. The small first-floor landing gets its light from an old coloured glass pane. It is a lighthouse on land, always cool, and surrounded in summer by grasshoppers and butterflies.

Trullo

Il Trullo è una pagghiara che abbiamo restaurata nella primavera del 2011. La pagghiara salentina, come tutti i furni, è una tipica costruzione rurale a secco, l’ultima fase dell’evoluzione della capanna preistorica. Esistevano due tipi di furni: i semplici ripari per la pioggia o la calura estiva e per depositare gli attrezzi agricoli; e i furni grandi o pagghiare, che fungevano anche da abitazione. I furni salentini, al contrario dei trulli, all’estremità superiore sono piatti. Una scala laterale in pietra conduce sul tetto, che era usato per seccare pomodori, fichi, altri prodotti della terra.

Il Trullo alle Sciare è una pagghiara a base quadrata, con tetto a cupola e con davanti un’aia circolare (che abbiamo protetta dal sole con una grande tenda a vela, bianca.) All’interno abbiamo ricavato un monolocale di 25 mq. con un divano letto matrimoniale, un armadio, tavolo e sedie, una piccola zona cottura, il frigorifero, e il bagno con doccia. E’ fuori dalla Foresteria – nei giardini a oriente – ma è un alloggio incantevole, un piccolo gioiello circondato d’ulivi e fiori.