Journalists Go Olive Picking

The chance to travel to a beautiful country and sample extra virgin olive oil - what's not to like, it is therefore not surprising that a number of journalists have taken the opportunity to go on olive picking holidays and report back on their experiences.

 The following are a series of links to their reports:

Olive Harvest

Gemma Hall freelance journalist writes of her experience picking olives with BTCV near Spoleto:

"There are many ways to harvest an olive tree for its fruit. You can shake its trunk with a tractor, use a pneumatic rake, or beat it with a stick. Alternatively, you can pluck each olive by hand. But, before you do so, consider this: it takes five kilos of olives to make one litre of oil; and once you start picking, you have just 24 hours to press your harvest before the fruit begins to ferment." ... more

From tree to tapas - a crash course in all things olive

Lucy Gilmore writing for the Observer went on a short break to Andalusia in Spain on Go Learn To's olive harvest and cooking course. The first thing she learned was that you don't sample the raw fruit!

"Spitting and spluttering, I choked up the last fragments of bitter fruit. I had thought that working in the fields during the olive harvest would mean popping the odd one into your mouth while the farmers weren’t looking" ... more

A taste of Italy at harvest time

Bob Maddams writes for The Observer about his time spent at Casal Dei Fichi exploring the Le Marche region during the olive harvest and discovering about the local olive oil:

"Ten of us were sitting around a long wooden table in a rustic restaurant ... One by one, we poured little pools of the peppery oils onto our plates and dunked chunks of thick, crusty, home-made bread into them before popping them into our mouths." ... more

Walking Spain's Olive Oil Route

Eddi Fiegel writes for The Guardian about a walking trail which follows the route of the disused railway which once took 'Andalucia's mountain of olives' down to the coast:

"Within half an hour there was complete silence. On either side, miles of silvery green olive trees with gnarled, ancient trunks dotted the earth, each one surrounded by the distinctive soleras – raked circles around their roots. The path wound round gentle bends, only to open up again into epic valleys with the haze of the blue-grey peaks of the Sierras Subbéticas in the distance." ... more

Enchanted by Abruzzo .. where the olives need picking and the landscape will steal your affection

Amanda Platell writes for the Daily Mail about her experiences olive picking in the lesser known region of Abruzzo:

"The first sound you hear is the dawn chorus of sparrow and finches as the sun creeps over the mountains, casting a veil of pink as sweet as gossamer. Then you notice the smell, a mixture of wild herbs trod underfoot ...the scent of olive groves and lavender," ...   more

You need a cheap holiday; the olive growers of southern Europe need a helping hand

Actress and novelist Carol Drinkwater writes for the Guardian about how WWOOF volunteers help with the Olive Harvest in Provence.

"I was on my way to an olive farm some English friends had recently bought near Cuers in the Plaine des Maures. This was to be their first harvest and they were struggling; the 60 trees were already dropping their fruit. It was only late October, usually considered too early to harvest." ... more