Who make This is Italy? Get to know the team of bloggers and reporters who make a structural or irregular contribution to This is Italy.
In addition to these regular bloggers, we also regularly use guest blogs from other Italy enthusiasts. Would you like to be part of the This is Italy team yourself or would you like to write a guest blog? contact the editor.
Introduce: Edward Hendriks (1975). In daily life I am a freelance copywriter. When I spent a month in Naples in the spring of 2009, ideas for a book started to surface. It would then be another three years before my Neapolitan-style debut thriller 'Blood Money' was released. I did start on June 18, 2009 with ditisitalie.nl, which over the years has grown into a popular online magazine with a lot of information and entertainment about Italy. In 2019 my latest thriller came out. In the meantime, I'm working on more manuscripts. Of course I will also continue to do my job as a copywriter for a wide variety of clients and blogging for This is Italy. I have three daughters, a wife and a great love for Italy.
Hello I'm Myrtle Claus. Our daily life, sometimes so different in small things, but certainly very recognizable for everyone in the Netherlands, is the basis for my column here on This is Italy. I write about Italy as a freelancer.
Aart Heering (1954) is a historian and journalist. After his studies, he became a research assistant in Italian history at the University of Groningen. In 1989 he switched to journalism and since then he lives and works in Rome, with a break of two years in Nijmegen and Berlin. He worked for twenty years as a free lance correspondent for newspapers, magazines, radio and TV from Italy, the Vatican and the Balkans, including trips to Turkey and Iraq (during the 2003 war). In those years he has been involved in almost all branches of journalism. He devoted countless reports to, among other things, the rise and fall of Berlusconi, the civil war in Albania in 1997 and the conclave of 2005. In addition, he developed into a specialist in travel and gastronomy, as a member (even now) of the Gruppo del Gusto, the gourmet section of the foreign press association in Rome. In 2009 he made another move, this time to the Dutch Embassy in Rome, where he has been promoting Dutch excellence as a press & politics officer ever since. But in his heart Aart has always remained a journalist and that is why he still likes it in Rome: “As a journalist you have to be guided by genuine amazement and you continue to keep it in Italy, even after thirty years.” Aart and his Roman wife have a son and daughter – now grown-ups – who he himself describes as 'Romano-Groningen half-breeds'.
Rop Saltberg is a correspondent in Italy for the NOS Journaal and lives in Rome. In addition to reports for radio and television about Italy, he photographs a lot, his great passion. 'Italy has really become a home for me after living in Spain for a long time. What fascinates me is the patchwork of regions, which are really completely different. That's why I keep traveling and exploring.' His favorite city is Naples.
Ineke Spoorenberg is a journalist. She worked for 21 years as an editor for the NOS Journaal, specializing in Italy. After the death of her partner, she went on a hike to Rome in 2010, and the following year a book about her journey was published, entitled: Ineke walks to Rome. In 2012, her career with the NOS came to an end. The following year she launched the website Met Ineke In Italy on which she writes about lesser-known but equally interesting places in Italy.
Lottie Lomme (1981) studied Italian in Utrecht and History in Bologna. She has 10 years of work experience as an Italian teacher in the Netherlands.
Marleen Rohmensen her
love for Italy is great. I feel like my second homeland. I've been coming here all my life and I speak the language fluently. I lived and worked there for a number of years (in Florence and in Milan) and also spent years in the south of Italy, so I also learned a lot about the mentality and culture in the south (Calabria) and about the big difference with northern Italy. I even learned to understand and speak the Calabrese dialect. My own company is 'in the making'. It will be a website for the rental of holiday homes and houses for sale or building plots in a specific part of Umbria and I want to expand this further to other parts of Italy in the future.
Willemijn Lindeboom has lived in Italy since 2001. After her study Industrial Engineering and Management she left for Tanzania and Zambia and when she decided after five years that it was time to go back to the Netherlands she went on holiday to Umbria, thought it was wonderful and stayed. She already spoke Italian because she spent her entire life vacations in Italy and spent a year in Italy learning the language before her studies. In 2013, she said goodbye to her comfortable life in Umbria to move to Tuscany, this time for love. She now blogs at winitalie.com, works for small businesses looking to gain a foothold in Italy (www.willemijn.it) and occasionally teaches Italian conversation.
I am Yoell Schutte. For years I have been completely in love with Italy. Sunny holidays, an educational school trip to Rome and Florence and an Italian uncle ensured that I came into contact with the beautiful country at a young age. My love for language made me sign up for an Italian language course in 2009, after which I chose to study Italian language and culture. During this bachelor I did an internship in Naples for more than four months, where I got a taste of real Italian life. After my bachelor I did the master in Translation, which mainly focused on translating from Italian into Dutch. Now I am taking my first steps in the world of translation.
Anne deVries is a graduated journalist with great passions for travel, culture and gastronomy. She loves Italy for its diversity: you never tire of it. She also likes to eat the Italian meals that her Sardinian mother-in-law serves her every now and then.
