From the release notes of MicroPython ESP8266 firmware v1.8 is clear, ntptime only supports UTC. I agree, time zone handling is out of the focus of ntptime. But it would be nice, if ntptime.settime() would support a offset argument, which is be added to ntptime.time() before setting the rtc.

Something like ntptime.settime(offset=2*3600) to provide CEST.
Then, getting the local time is easy as time.localtime() (if #2097 is solved).

I believe, this is a simple api enhancement. Later, a timezone module may calculate the offset by time zone and daylight saving.

I can provide a pull request, but I am not sure about the api and what unit (seconds, minutes or hours) is advisable for the offset. Also the PR may conflict with #2121 .