Olive Trees

Olives are a staple in Greece being used in beauty products, health products, and in foods. We encounter olive products daily and frequently pass olive trees on our trips. Today especially I felt like we were surrounded by olive trees, so I wanted to write a little bit about them. Our first stop today was the Menelaion, which is a sanctuary to Helen and Menelaus and was high on a hill where we could see many olive trees some of which were on the hill with us. Our second stop was the Olive Museum where they showcase the uses of the olive and how olives have been made into olive oil throughout the years from the prehistoric until the industrial times. Our third stop was the Sparta Acropolis where we walked through an olive orchard on the way to the Acropolis. Our final stop was what they say is the grave of Leonidas, which actually didn't have anything to do with olives.
I was told some facts about the trees I'm going to share. After around seven years, they start producing olives and around fifteen years, they produce a full yield. They also don't need a lot of water, so they can survive in dryer climates. Here are some trees we saw today, which were pretty gnarly and had some junk in the trunk.

What I found really interesting about the trees and my favorite piece of information I heard was when our leader asked, "You know how you can tell if it's going to rain? When the olive trees turn silver." It was raining this morning, and sure enough, the leaves turned silver because they flip over, so the green part of the leaf is on the bottom, and the underside which is a grayish color flips up.

Can you see the silver trees mixed in with the green?

Here is a close up comparison between the olive and another tree. Note the silver color.

Notice the silver on top and green on bottom of the leaves.

a zoom in of the tree above

I also forgot one more stop we made today. It was to get what we've been told are the best donuts on this side of Athens. Mr. Donut! They were delicious.

We tried the chocolate glaze, cinnamon bun, and apple fritter.

We are still in Mystras for the night at Hotel Byzantion. We will be here for the next three nights, so I'll post pictures of the town and hotel tomorrow probably. (We will do some searching T. Banakis).