Istria is the northern-most place within the €uro-zone that yields lots of Olives (Olea europaea), because of it’s climate located at the Adria (a small side-arm of the Mediterranean bathtub).
Olive trees are growns mostly for olive oil extraction. But the pickled fruits are also very popular (once you got used to them). Where olives grow, the fruits have about the same exchange value than sea snail shells, a few km further north they are more expensive than – olive oil even!
We sorted the oilves in two categories: ripe and overmature (left bucket), washed and watered them, and now they are in salt-treatment for a couple of days. tbc.
In the meantime we had a look at the other souveniers:
We removed the Stone Pine seeds from the cones, the squirrels had left a couple. Among them we found a germinating one we put in flower pot.