One thing I love about eating out in Portugal is the dessert menu, and I always try to leave room at the end of the meal for a little bit of sweetness. I’m not talking about ice creams or the pre-bought-in desserts that a lot of places serve nowadays, but those that are marked on the menu as being ‘caseira’ or homemade.
Although Estremoz is a compact town and maybe not the first stop on the usual tourist trail, it offers a great selection of hotels, hostels, Airbnb apartments, rural retreats and boutique hotels to stay at. In this blog we offer some ideas of where to stay in Estremoz.
There are plenty of cafés and restaurants to try in Estremoz ranging from busy snack-bar places that are always packed-out with locals to more pricy ‘special occasion’ venues—and everything in between. Most are located in the two distinct parts of the town: the streets of the old town that radiate out from the castle and those of the ‘new’ town that lead off from the main Rossio Marquês de Pombal square.
If you are registered as a resident in Portugal, then you are eligible for a Número Utente, which gives you access to all public health services and should be shown when visiting the health centre, for diagnostic tests and therapy, and also used at the pharmacy when purchasing prescription medications.
In Estremoz, getting your Número Utente it is a pretty straight-forward procedure. You simply go to the Centro de Saude from 9:00 to 13:00hrs and 14:00 to 17:30hrs, Monday to Friday, with the required documentation.
Before purchasing a property, car or anything else when moving to Portugal, the first thing we needed to address was opening a bank account in Estremoz town centre.
To carry out any kind of transaction in Portugal you will need a Numero de Contribuinte (Número de Identificação Fiscal) or tax number.
Getting around Estremoz is easy because it’s a small, compact town and you can comfortably walk to all the amenities yourself—or cycle if you fancy some exercise. But if you live further away from the town centre and don’t own a car it can get tricky. You can always rely on a friendly neighbour to give you a lift to town (from my experience I can say that the people of Estremoz are very friendly and helpful), or you could call a taxi. An easy way to get around to places without having to rely on someone else.
How to find one!
Whatever the property agent and seller say—general advice is it is always best to contract a lawyer when purchasing a property in Portugal. But finding one is not as easy as you may think…
Portugal, or Lusitania as it was known at the time, was the western most province of the Roman world, with it’s capital very close by in Merida (just 80 kilometres across the border into Spain).