My name is Marty Sturino and I am the creator of http://Calabrianlife.com a web site that is devoted to promoting travel to Calabria by telling human-interest stories about Life here in Calabria, Italy. I’m an American living in Calabria and write human-interest stories from my first hand experiences. Calabrianlife is bi-lingual English and Italian, offers free Italian lessons, digital images of Calabria and features travel destinations. It is specifically designed for tourists, arm-chair travellers and students.

Thanks to development funds from the EU, Calabria is growing and becoming more of a tourist destination all of the time, as evidenced by Ryanair’s flights from London to Lamezia-Terme, during the summer season. It is my sincere desire, that writers like myself and my colleagues will play a role in telling stories that interest others in visiting. Our objective is to provide our readers with the benefit of our experience, eyes and ears, and perhaps some friendly advice. We can’t all make the trip back to the land of our ancestors, and as a result, many have only vague ideas about Calabria based on stories of long ago. Most of them told of the problems of Calabria. There were many. The land was poor, not well developed and not well managed politically. Peasants worked the land of the Padrones well into the 20th century, and people were forced to leave this place for opportunities in Europe and the Americas.

Sadly, many of those who left were not aware of the great history, important events and people of Calabria that helped to shape the future of Europe and the world. Poor people have no appetite for history. They need food and clothes for themselves and families. They needed opportunities, and took them. Our stories are designed to fill in the blanks.. Who were these people ? What was their history ? Just what events shaped the lives of our ancestors and contributed to making us who are we today ? What has happened for those that chose to remain ? We hope you enjoy reading our stories as much as we do writing them…it is an adventure for us too. And a labour of love…

Thanks for your interest in Calabrianlife..

Kind Regards!

Marty Sturino