Olive Trees

We have been seeing lots of olive trees while we have been traveling in Greece. The first olive tree we saw was at the Acropolis in Athens. It was planted there because Athena gave the Ancient Greeks the olive tree when they chose to name Athens after Athena. We also got some olives at a market in Athens.

olive tree in Athens at the Acropolis

olive at a market in Athens 

When we went to Delphi we saw the biggest olive grove growing in all of Greece. People estimate that there are 1,200,000 olive trees growing there. Greece is the third biggest olive oil maker in the world. The biggest is Spain and the second is Italy.

olive oil can at Delphi

olive tree in front of big rocks at Meteora

biggest olive tree grove in Delphi

We found out some facts about olives and here are three of them:

• Before you can eat an olive you have to cure it with lye or salt then it is edible 
• The largest type of olive is called a donkey olive and the smallest is called a bullet olive 
• Greece was the first place where olives were farmed in 3500 B.C.

YaY fActS!

Now we are in Crete staying in a house and the guy who owns it has a farm with about 800 olive trees. He left some olive oil for us that is from his trees. And one of the oldest living olive trees in the world is on Crete and is 4,000 years old and it still grows olives. 

olive trees in Crete

lots of olive oil cans at Crete

In my opinion olives don't taste good but I do like olive oil.

Sources:

• http://www.sfakia-crete.com/sfakia-crete/olive.html 
• http://www.greek-olive-oil.com/history.html
• http://justfunfacts.com/interesting-facts-about-olives/
• https://greece.terrabook.com/phocis/page/olive-grove-amfissa