Seven (7) days Residential olive harvesting

Description

7 days Residential Olive harvesting, cooking classes with olive oil, olive oil tasting, vineyard visits & wine tasting, sightseeing in Bodrum and Muğla, farmers market visits.

Day One

Arrive in our house late in the afternoon. Meet and greet, take your room and we will serve a welcome dinner overlooking the most mytholical of all seas The Aegean in our house which is more a kitchen !

Day Two

Wake up early in the morning, meet at the olive orchards with others. Start by placing the nets under the trees, no breakfast yet! You will have to collect at least 3 packs (40 kgs each) of olives before breakfast is ready. While you are working on olives some one will be preparing tea and coffee on woodfire, and a rich breakfast definately including variety of olives, olive oil, tomatos, variety of cheeses and sky has not limit lets see what the land lady of the day has in mind. After breakfast the picking and packing goes on, there is always a challange on who picks more. In the late afternoon, there will be snacks that are served again by the fire some times it can be similar to English high tea with cookies and cakes or grilling sucuk (Turkish Sausages) or chicken wings over wood fire.

Once all the packs are on the back of the tractor, the olives will go to the communal press, it is always challanging to see the olive oil coming out and tasting and measuring the acidity. If its below 1.0 than that means you have good quality olive oil. If its below 0.5, than it is great olive oil you will deserve a glass of wine right there right after tasting the fresh olive oil with fresh bread.

Come back home to sleep.

Day Three

After a nice breakfast with fresh eggs from the neighbors, variety of cheeses, olives, fresh baked bread etc, etc of the famous Turkish Breakfast we will visit a small vegetable farm in the village and pick some vegetables to cook with olive oil at our cooking class today. We will be making some borek’s with herb and cheese stuffing aswell and ground beef and patato stuffing and some vegetables cooked in olive oil and to surprise you we will also make a desert with olive oil.

While cooking you will also be tasting different kinds of olive oil from different regions of Turkey. At the end you will learn how to taste olive oil and understand the differences between early harvest and late harvest olive oil aswell as good and bad olive oil.

Overnight will be at our house, you will have free time in the evening to enjoy around a fireplace or take a stroll in the village or visit the small village of Bargilya on the sea shore.

Day Four

We will leave the house to visit vineyards and villages in the area. Our breakfast will be served at a very typical village in the countryside. There we will meet a family that cooks, farms, and makes carpets and kilims. Their mother will be showing you how to weave carpets and kilims so that you understand why it is so precious. At the end of every olive harvesting season locals would go to markets to buy wool if they did not have their own and the young girls would start weaving carpets for their dowry.

In the afternoon we will be visiting a local vineyard and meet the owner. We will learn about the grapes and wines of the region and taste their wines and nibbles.

Overnight will be at our house, you will have free time in the evening to enjoy around a fireplace or take a stroll in the village or visit the small village of Bargilya on the sea shore.

Day Five

After a good breakfast at home, today we will take you to the city of Bodrum. You will have free time there to visit the Castle and monuments as well as enjoy shopping and wandering around the charming little town.

In the afternoon we will bring you back home and we will get ready for a fine dining dinner at Karnas Vineyards, where you will be having a wine pairing dinner and tasting all their award winning wines.

Overnight will be at our house.

Day Six

We will leave home early for our side trip to the city of Stratonikeia of the Ancient World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratonicea_(Caria) apart from being a very important town of its time, we believe it is one of the best ancient cities to visit since it had been inhabited until the 1940’s. It is amazing to see ancient ruins right next to 19th century village homes. This will be an easy walk and not so touristy. Breakfast will be at the site. We will have a professional guide with us to understand it better. Later we will also visit Lagina the slowtravel guide says “Less than 15 km away you’ll find Lagina, which – back in the days – was connected to Stratonikeia by a sacred road.

Why sacred, you may ask? Because Lagina ancient site was the cult center (or religious center) of its political counterpart, Stratonikeia. This is a sanctuary dedicated to Hekate, a mysterious cult devoted to the goddess of magic & witchcraft, the moon & the night, and ghosts.” Such a mystical place you will never forget.

On our way back we will also be visiting the city of Milas (Mylasa), its archeological museum and vibrant farmers markets.

Overnight will be at our house, you will have free time in the evening to enjoy around a fireplace or take a stroll in the village or visit the small village of Bargilya on the sea shore.

Day Seven

After our last breakfast together we will say our goodbyes and hope to meet again.

After this week in this ancient world, olive oil will never be the same for you again and you will always remember this part of the world with great memories.