Olive Oil Museums

This page is being developed to guide you to some of the best olive oil museums.

Spain

Museo del Olivar y el Aceite

Baena is home to the Museo del Olivar y el Aceite a museum housed in an old olive mill where you can discover more about the olive in two floors of exhibitions. At its peak of production the mill was worked by three men processing up to 3000kg of olives each day. On the first floor is an olive oil tasting salon.

Les Borges Blanques - Catalonia

Garrigues Olive Oil Theme Park

Opened in 1998 the museum has the world's largest olive press and some ancient olive trees - alongside a collection of oil cruets and a shop providing tastings.

Italy

Cisano di Bardolino - Museo dell'Olio d'Oliva - Oleificio Cisano del Garda

Another olive oil museum based in an old mill can be found in northern Italy near Lake Garda. The mill at Cisano del Garda has been working since 1936. Today the museum contains original pressing machines including a wide range of wooden screw presses, along with more modern equipment including the first manual iron press. There is an audiovisual display explaining the harvesting and processing of olives for oil and also a range of domestic implements such as storage jars, lights etc.

Start your 360º tour of the museum here.

Liguria - Museo dell Olivo

This museum is on the northern edge of Italy where it joins France. This is also the northern border of commercial olive cultivation. The area is covered with olive groves running from the coast to deep inland. The museum is located in a beautiful Art Nouveau building which is also the headquarters of the Fratelli Carli corporation (famous producers of olive oil). The museum houses a wide range of displays, plus a library and gift shop.

The contents are arranged in a series of rooms covering all aspects of growth, production, cultivation and use. For example room 1 is devoted to The History of the Olive Tree whilst room 14 contains the hydraulic powered mill and some wonderful old ceramic jars used to store more than a hundred kilos of oil. The museum provides an online tour of its 18 sections and you can start the tour here.

Opening times and directions.

Greece

Vouves (Crete) - Olive Tree Museum of Vouves

Located 30km west of Chania this museum has the advantage, for olive lovers, of being built next to the oldest olive tree in the world. Their website details the exhibits, allows you to take a 360 degree tour and provides some brilliant photos of that special ancient tree.

Sparta - Museum of the Olive and Greek Olive Oil

This museum is situated in Laconia at the heart of one of the main olive producing areas. It documents the story of olives and olive oil from pre-history to the industrial era and does so through describing its contribution to man through its involvement not only in food and nutrition, but through its use in cosmetics and its role in mythology and religion.

Lesvos - Museum of Industrial Olive Oil Production

Housed in the old communal oil-mill this museum has been founded, designed and run by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation. The museum contains old machinery and equipment which has been restored and alongside an audiovisual display shows how the machines worked to produce oil and sets this into the cultural background of the area.

Turkey

Adatepe - Olive Oil Museum (Adatepe Zeytinyagi Muzesi)

This is currently Turkey's only olive oil museum and has been created from an old previously abandoned soap factory. Located in Kucukkuyu, surrounded by olive trees and overlooking the Aegean Sea the museum has a wide range of interesting exhibits including antique olive presses, baskets for olive picking, earthenware oil jars and oil lamps together with text (in English as well as Turkish) to document the entire journey of olives from 'tree to table'. These displays of artefacts are enlivened by demonstrations of soap making using pure olive oil. There is also a cafe and a museum shop. The museum is open every day click here to find out more.

France

Nyons (near Marseilles) - Musée de l'olivier

The museum includes photographs and poetry celebrating the olive tree. It also shows the tools and equipment used in olive cultivation past and present.