WHO IS THE GUY BEHIND THIS SITE?
NAME - Robert Stenerhag, aka "Rob the Swedish wolf"
AGE - 28 years old for the moment (April 2001)
LIVE - Somewhere in Dalarna, Sweden, for the moment
Ciao!
Here follows a short presentation of what is to be found in this site.
I fell for Italy when I heard the song "Isabella" by the Swedish rocksinger/songwriter Ulf Lundell. It might seem a little bit strange since he only mentions "a vineyard in Tuscany" once in the song, but for some reason the picture of that vineyard got to stay in my imagination. It didn't get better when I later heard the song "Rialto" by the same man. When Lundell later published the novel "Friheten" (The Freedom) I was lost. Those who know the book knows that the story takes part in Stockholm, Österlen (a part of southern Sweden) and in Rome and parts of Tuscany. A short while after I had read the book I got the opportunity to go to Italy. It became a trip to Rome for the turn of the millennium. I also went to Florence that time. Later I went to Rome again at the end of February and eventually another trip to Rome and the rest of Italy during the summer of 2000. The last trip lasted for almost three months. It is from these trips the pictures in this site (as of April 2001) are from. Hopefully I'll be able to do more trips to Italy and more pictures to publish further on.
I also have a passion for Italian movies, especially directors such as Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Ettore Scola, Giuseppe Tornatore and the Taviani brothers. I always try to find more movies but it is hard sometimes to find the older movies and it is not often new Italian movies show up here in Sweden. Those I've seen are presented among the moviepages.
Nowdays I also read a lot of books by Italian writers. My big favourite is Alberto Moravia, but also Italo Calvino, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Alessandro Baricco and Umberto Eco belong to those I like to read. Also here the books I've read are presented among the bookpages.
Here in Sweden the Italian music is often seen as "buttermusic" (close to too romantic etc) which I can agree to up to a certain point. The Italian music has a lot of different styles, just like music from other countries. My big favourite singer in Italy is Ligabue whom I call "Italy's Ulf Lundell". Some of the singers are among the musicpages, first of all with links to their websites.
Since my big passion here in life is to write poetry I've of course written poems which in a way or another deals with Italy, those are among the poetrypages. This means I have no poems by Italian poets there but you will find only my own poems.
I hope you will have a pleasant time among these pages.
/Robert "Rob the Swedish wolf" Stenerhag (ICQ# 15663918)