Santarem
Covers a wide area that is becoming known as the green heart of Portugal, it has within its boundaries coastal property, townhouses, and rural property in and around the many councils that make up the municipality of Santarem.
ABRANTES, ALCANENA, ALMEIRIM, ALPIARÇA, BENAVENTE, CARTAXO, CHAMUSCA, CONSTÂNCIA, CORUCHE, ENTRONCAMENTO, FERREIRA DO ZÊZERE, GOLEGÃ, MAÇÃO, OURÉM, RIO MAIOR, SALVATERRA DE MAGOS, SANTARÉM, SARDOAL, TOMAR, TORRES NOVAS, VILA NOVA DA BARQUINHA.
Santarem is situated 45kms north of Lisbon and is not far from the holy Catholic shrine that is Fatima; Santarem has its own holy shrine the Church of the Holy Miracle.
The Legend
The story goes that a 13th-century woman with a cheating husband went to a witch and asked for a spell to tame her wayward husband, the witch agreed to the spell on the condition that the woman supplied her with a wafer of the holy body of Christ. The woman, in desperation, stole the wafer which immediately started bleeding; in fear, the woman hid the wafer in a chest. Later that night the couple was awakened by a bright light surrounding the chest.
The priest was summoned and he immediately put the wafer in a wax vessel, the next morning another miracle occurred the vessel was broken and the wafer was enclosed in a wax PIX, the wafer is still visible enclosed in the PYX to this day.
Visitors
Thousands of pilgrims travel to see the wafer every year and not surprisingly a number of businesses have sprung up around this, when you add it to the proximity of Fatima it clearly makes the area more desirable as a real estate investment.
The popularity of the Silver Coast
Of course, the Silver Coast is becoming more popular in its own right and is widely tipped to become one of the next property hotspots. The tourist industry in Central Portugal has been steadily gathering pace and with the improved infrastructure linking up the entire area, it is certain to gather pace in the coming few years, making Santarem property very attractive indeed.