One Olive Tree – One Full Batch

“I’ll be waiting just below Marana,” Lorenzo wrote on a scrap of paper, and handed it to his sister to secretly pass on to Nina in Fažana.

The young men of Vodnjan were drawn to the girls of Fažana. They watched them from their olive groves above the village, and approached them on the beaches below. Secret meetings were arranged—halfway between Vodnjan and Fažana.

Right there, below Marana, stands a special olive tree called Mažina. It’s the only olive tree with a name—and the only one that produces enough fruit to fill a full batch: a basin’s worth for the stone mill.

Huge and sprawling, with a lush crown and deeply furrowed bark, Mažina has stood there since time immemorial. One massive branch stretched over the road, and in the shade of its protective canopy, the women of Fažana and the men of Vodnjan met in secret. Mažina was the silent witness to their hidden love stories.

But new times care little for romance. The great branch was eventually sawn off, for fear it might fall on President Tito’s convoy as he passed on his way to Brijuni.

Only half of Mažina’s crown remains today—but it is still the largest tree around. And the olive tree still keeps its silence—guarding the love secrets of Fažana’s girls and Vodnjan’s boys.