Centro Region, Portugal known as the Princes of Beira. Along the region’s mountainous border with Spain are a series of fortresses and castles that once protected the country from its many invaders. Over the centuries, Moors, Christians, Spaniards and Portuguese have all tried to take these villages, but their higher elevations usually gave them a distinct advantage. On that border, the more than one dozen fortified frontier villages beckon today’s visitors to come explore a 900-year history — full of the heroism, epic battles and romance upon which Portugal struggled to become a nation. Today, Portugal boasts the longest-standing border in all of
A land without a people for a people without a land country". Variant phrasings in use in the pre-Zionist and pre-state eras include "a country without a people for a people without a country", "a land without a nation for a nation without a land". According to Edward Said, the phrasing was "a land without people for a people without a land". William Eugene Blackstone (born 1841) became an evangelist at the age of 37. A trip to the Holy Land in 1881 made him into a passionate restorationist. Like most people in the 1880s and 90s, he was appalled by the government-instigated pogroms being carried out against Russian Jews. Blackstone's