We are looking for an esim that will allow us to make phone calls and receive texts while in Europe. We have never used an esim, and would appreciate any help from anyone who has used them.
Some eSIMs do provide a local telephone number. I don't know whether those are sometimes country-specific, so we may need to know what countries you plan to visit.
Receiving texts sent to your home telephone number may be a different issue. I have no problem with that because I have Google Fi service and texts are free, so I just let things from home roll in. I don't know whether that is practical with other carriers.