Travel: Day Trip to Opio, France

Every few months, we need to make a short trip to an olive mill in the town of Opio, not too far from us.  The 20 minute drive along a serpentine road shaded by towering trees is a delightful one.  Halfway through the drive, we pass the town of Valbonne, another charming place perfect for afternoon strolls and sips of wine in the village square - just not today.  We are on a mission: we need olives and olive oil!

Pretty Gift Baskets

 We arrive to Moulin d'Opio (www.moulin-dopio.com) and find there is a tour bus in the parking lot - not a good sign for us!  The shop will be crowded and a tour guide has

Olives Olives and More Olives

discovered our secret boutique....mind you, the mill has been here for 7 generations, so in reality, thousands have discovered it before us.  Nonetheless, we treasure this little place!  The boutique sells olives, oils, vinegar, soaps, ceramics and a small selection of sweet treats.  As we enter the shop, we pick up a straw shopping basket and begin to work our way through the crowd.  We realize that these shoppers have a limited amount of time to shop and are grabbing at anything and everything.  

Incredible tasting olive oils

The staff, we noticed, are trying to restock the displays as quickly as possible.  Finally the bell sounds for all shoppers to return to the bus...whew.  With the place to ourselves, we look at the selection of packaged olives: some are in garlic, some in basil with garlic and another is a cocktail mix of dark and green olives.  Moving over to the olive oils we are faced with another round of choices: do we buy the oil in a glass bottle or in a tin?  Should we get the large size or the medium size?  What a nice dilemma to have on Tuesday afternoon!  Selections in hand, we make our way to the check out before temptation lures anymore purchases into our "panier" (basket)!

We take a stroll around the grounds to see how the olives are growing before heading home

Olives just before harvest

with our goodies! M-M good!  (Have you looked at the Photos for Opio?)

http://www.moulin-dopio.com/boutique/en/   When the link opens it will be the English version.  You can order items from this translated page. However, the French version includes recipes!)