More Portugal
- ️Thu Jan 10 2013
| Penedo dos
Três Reinos («The Rock of Three Kingdoms») In the middle ages in northern Portugal there was a tripoint between the medieval kingdoms of Galiza (Galicia), León and Portugal. Nowadays, in the same (tri)point there is the Spanish Autonomous Region of Galicia at west, the Spanish Autonomous Region of Castilla-León at east, and the Portuguese Republic at south. The curiosity is that the tripoint still has the same old medieval name: Penedo dos Três Reinos (i.e."Rock of the Three Kingdoms"). The name is no longer "true", because Portugal is a Republic since 1910 and the other two are now regions of the Kingdom of Spain. |
 I'm attaching a map, adapted from a map of Portugal issued by RV Reise- und Verkehrsverlag GmbH; scale 1:300,000. |
| France,
Portugal I'm including a photo of the border of France, Portugal. Ok, it's half a joke. França is a village in Northern Portugal, in the district of Bragança, former province of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. «França» is also the Portuguese name for France (the country). Another part that is not a joke is that some malevolent people profited from the coincidence of names. In the 60's of the XXth century many Portuguese immigrated illegally to work in France. Some poor, illiterate people paid lots of money to dealers (kind of mafia) who were supposed to take those persons to France. After a not very long trip many were left at this village of França. They couldn't complain. The poor people got what they had paid for: to be taken to França ("France"). So, in the 60's this entrance of França (village) was a kind of substitute border of the dreamed France (country). By the way, the village is only 5 km from the real PTES border, on the road between Bragança (PT) and Puebla de Sanabria (ES). |
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Text by Francisco Santos.
This page was last time updated 01/10/13 .