In La Rioja, there are vineyards full of grapes to celebrate the arrival of the New Year for billions of years to come. Throughout Andalusia, you will find fields full of olive trees that will make you happy.
A great beer along with olives will accompany your aperitif just as happily as your toast with olive oil at breakfast. Olive oil has many health benefits, in addition to its taste. I doubt that the Queen of England or Jordi Hurtado has bread with olive oil for breakfast every day.
Oleotourism is a type of tourism that revolves around olive oil and all the culture that surrounds it. If you want to know more about olive oil tourism in Seville, I suggest visiting a hacienda. You can take day trips from Seville even without a car.
Not just any hacienda, huh? I am talking about Hacienda Guzman.
The first owner of Hacienda Guzman was Hernando Colon, son of Christopher Columbus. He was dedicated to exporting the liquid gold produced at this hacienda to the New World.
As you can imagine, it was one of the largest olive oil factories globally and one of the most influential.
To give you an idea of the importance of the hacienda, during the 18th and 19th centuries, it was a place of passage for illustrious people. Influential people such as King Carlos III or King Fernando VI used to go hunting in the area.
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A very curious fact that caught my attention is that Richard Ford also passed through here and dedicated a chapter of his book “Excursion to an olive farm” to this hacienda.
What can you do at an olive farm?
When you visit the hacienda, you will realize that it is one of those secrets that Seville hides; I wonder if you will fall in love with it once you discover its history. I have just briefly summarized it!
Visiting an olive hacienda is a different way to complement your visit to Seville. And this hacienda is located just a 20-minute drive from Seville.
Very near. If you go to Logroño and do not visit a wine cellar, well, this is the same. Coming to Andalusia and not knowing a bit more about the culture of olive oil is a cardinal sin, miarma.
The hacienda is a cucada. There are three super photogenic places: the Patio del Señorío, the Patio de Lagar and the Jardín Andalusí.
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Look, look…
It also has other fascinating interior places such as the Carriage Museum and its private collection of antique cars.
The Alzamara where oil is produced today is also worth seeing, as well as the traditional 17th-century Alzamara to get a feel for how oil was produced in the past.
And if we talk about the outside fields of the estate, the olive library deserves a special mention. It is one of the largest olive tree museums in the world.
An olive library with more than 150 varieties of olives from different parts of the world. My life has never allowed me to learn so much about something so unknown to me in one day.
And now comes the best part, the oil tasting! A tasting of the four different oils that are lovingly produced directly at the hacienda.
They have been so pampered and well cared for that they have won awards such as a Gold Medal in the “New York Olive Oil Competition” or other internationally recognized awards.
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Of all the oils, my favorite is the Hojiblanco, with the aroma of freshly cut grass. I have changed my Kellogg’s breakfast for a toast with bread in oil at 07.30 a.m. since visiting Hacienda Guzman.
It seems that I have suddenly become Andalusian. Maybe I am exaggerating, but I promise it is true. I don’t know about you, but I want to live as long as the Queen of England, at least.
World Heritage olive grove landscapes
If you find the visit enjoyable, I still have an ace up my sleeve for you. And another of the things that most fascinated me about the Hacienda Guzman was its olive grove landscape with more than 340 hectares full of olive trees.
Hacienda Guzman and the Juan Ramon Guillen Foundation have launched an exciting initiative in Andalusia. They are working to ensure that the Andalusian olive grove landscape will be considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site by 2020.
May these beautiful Andalusian landscapes be given the recognition they deserve!
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