Oliveira do Hospital Cheese festival

Every year in March, our nearby town of Oliveira do Hospital holds Portugal's biggest cheese festival. Around 300 exhibitors usually participate and not only is there cheese, there is lots of other traditional produce especially produce from the Serra da Estrela region.

There are cheese producers, including the dairies that produce the Serra da Estrela PDO Cheese. Sausages from the region, honey, wine, liqueurs and spirits, bread and cakes, and crafts.

Every year, an invited cheese is associated with the event and visitors can go around all the stalls tasting cheese, sausages, Dão wine, and other traditional gastronomic products.

The event ends with the largest curd cheese in the world, weighing around 70 kg, manufactured live, offered to all who want to taste it and accompanied by pumpkin jam, also produced at the event.

We had a great time sampling cheeses and buying a few as well as quite a few liquors!

Thanks for looking :) xxx