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The Siabella team – who is behind it

On foot – janss far away

I am Sibylle Janssen. I was born in the Rhineland in 1956. I graduated from high school in Düsseldorf in 1972. After a six-month internship in a home for children who were difficult to educate at the time, I traveled through North and Central America for six months. I then studied social education in Hildesheim and lived in Scotland for two years in a residential school for children with special needs, which I looked after and taught. Back in Germany, I completed an extra-occupational training course to become a Waldorf teacher. However, I never worked as a teacher. Instead, I took great pleasure in bringing up our four children.

At some point I discovered my wanderlust and a little later my love of Italy. So I quickly learned Italian as another foreign language – alongside English and French – and from then on we spent all our family vacations in Italy.

After training as a hiking guide, I successfully turned my hobby and passion into my profession. I have been guiding Hiking Trips in Italy for more than 20 years now and in 2003 I founded Siabella …natürlich reisen!

I am Ruth Janssen, born in 1988. Since I was 7 years old, our family vacations have taken us to Sicily and the Aeolian Islands more and more often. So my love for Sicily and Italy was born as a child. Even at the age of 13, my biggest dream was to live in Sicily one day. After leaving school, I decided to do an apprenticeship as a travel agent, which I successfully completed in June 2011. I then began studying physical geography and landscape ecology at Leibniz Universität Hannover, which I completed with a Bachelor of Science degree. During my time as a student, I organized the excursions for the institute in my HiWi job and my final thesis was the organization and implementation of a scientific-geographical excursion with students to Sicily.

After my studies, I finally went to Sicily for a longer period of time, where I initially worked as a receptionist in a hotel. However, I enjoy planning trips even more, so in 2018 I decided to join my mother’s company. I mainly take care of the accommodation bookings and other services. I am the local contact person for our individual guests. I also plan individual group tours and accompany them with a focus on Sicily, where I spend most of my time. As I am familiar with everyday life in Sicily and am now fluent not only in Italian but also in Sicilian, I can give you an insight into the authentic Sicily and enjoy showing you my adopted country.

I am Johann Janssen. Born in Hanover in 1992 and having visited Sicily for the first time at the age of three, I was practically born to travel. At the age of nine, I accompanied my mother on a group trip for the first time and the following year I was already guiding guests on the hikes in Italy that I am now familiar with. Since then, I have accompanied many trips together with my mother.

After graduating from high school, I initially decided to study civil engineering, but switched to geography after a short time. I successfully completed my bachelor’s degree in 2018 and have been studying for a master’s degree in landscape science ever since. Alongside my studies, I began to regularly lead cycling tours with international groups in Germany, Austria, France and Italy for an Italian tour operator. I have been working as a freelance tour guide for Siabella and other companies since 2017.

The Aeolian Islands and South Tyrol are my specialties, where I prefer to lead Hiking Trips. I also frequently take groups to the Gulf of Naples, Sicily and Piedmont. The focus is not on the sporting challenge, but on the enjoyable experience of the different landscapes, the Italian cuisine and the authentic way of life in the respective destination region.