I recently returned from some international travel—my first trip out of the US since Covid. I was so happy to be able to travel again! And a journey through beautiful and historic Portugal and Spain was an ideal choice for a first trip after the pandemic hiatus. I was traveling for the first time with Overseas Adventure Travel, a company that guarantees small groups (there were 13 people in mine) and focuses on immersion in local culture.

You may be imagining the cobblestone streets of Alfama, the gorgeous castles of Sintra, the picturesque whitewashed hilltop towns of Andalucia, the Prado, paella, olives, and wine. Lots of wine. If that’s what you’re imagining, you’ve hit the nail on the head. In addition to that, we had the best tour leader in the galaxy. What’s the point of ever going on another tour once I’ve already experienced the best tour leader, ever?

You may also be thinking, “That’s great, Randy. Glad you had a good time. But what about chickens? Isn’t this blog about chickens? Surely you didn’t travel all that way and come back without a report on the local poultry situation.”

Well, good news, dear readers. There are indeed chickens in both Spain and Portugal. And I got up close and personal with a few of them. Proof? This picture. That’s me with my biggest lens, trying to get a clean shot of some really nice hens in a coop I discovered. I’m not sure where the rest of my group was at that point. They may have been off somewhere looking at some Roman ruins or a cathedral. Yes, I also saw and appreciated Roman ruins and cathedrals, but I saw chickens as well, and my report follows. Please note this caveat: Some of my pictures and stories, while not featuring chickens per se, at least feature birds. And when they’re not about actual birds, they are at least about animals.

The Rooster of Barcelos

In addition to my flock of real live chickens, I seem to have acquired a sizable collection of chicken figurines. This collection more or less assembled itself through some sort of gravitational attraction - I haven’t ever purchased a single figurine. Friends and acquaintances continue to find them here and there, remember that I’m the chicken guy, and buy them for me.

In my collection there are two little ornately decorated roosters of a similar design. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember who gave them to me or where they came from. But I was astonished to discover that the brothers and cousins of these little guys were everywhere in Portugal. I’ve learned that rooster figurines of this design are a national symbol and are called “The Rooster of Barcelos.”

The rooster comes with a folk tale. And like all oft-repeated stories, this tale has morphed into a bazillion different versions. After hearing and reading a certain number of those bazillion accounts, I’ve created my own. And here it is.

One evening, hundreds of years ago, a man paused at the side of the road. He was tired from many days of continuous walking up and down hills, over dirt paths and down cobblestone streets. He was a pilgrim. Like countless many before him and many more after him, right up to the present day, he was traveling to the shrine of Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Now he was on the outskirts of a town in northern Portugal, and since it was dusk, he decided he would seek shelter here for the night.

Little did he know that his decision to stop at this particular town on this particular day would be an ill-fated one. The town was Barcelos, and it was in an uproar. A terrible crime had been committed, a blatant theft, and every citizen was afraid to leave their house on the chance that the malicious thief would take their valuables while they were gone. Groups of angry vigilantes roamed the streets looking for suspects. And as the pilgrim entered Barcelos, he was immediately seized by one such group and was thrown into the town’s dungeon.

By and by, he found himself facing the magistrate. The magistrate was anxious to calm the citizens of Barcelos, get the business of this crime behind him, and get life back to normal. And since no robberies had occurred while the pilgrim was incarcerated, it seemed logical to the magistrate that the pilgrim was guilty. The magistrate sentenced the pilgrim to hang.

The next day, the hangman opened the door to the dungeon, tied the pilgrim’s hands and started leading him to the gallows. “Please!” the pilgrim pleaded, “I am a poor and simple man on a holy pilgrimage. I am innocent! Please, allow me to argue my case before the magistrate one more time!”

Perhaps the hangman was more rational than his fellow citizens. And perhaps he was more humane than the magistrate. Or maybe he realized the gravity of the execution since he was the executioner. Whatever the reason, he decided to honor the pilgrim’s plea. He took the pilgrim to the magistrate’s house.

The magistrate was entertaining luncheon guests and had a carving knife poised over a roasted rooster when the executioner burst into the dining room with the bound pilgrim. The pilgrim sorrowfully begged the magistrate to reconsider his verdict. He repeated his case: He was a humble man of meager means. He was on holy mission, a pilgrimage. He was innocent.

The magistrate set down the carving knife. He was annoyed to be petitioned in this way in front of his guests. “You are guilty,” he pronounced. “I am as certain of it as I am certain that there is a roasted rooster in front of me.”

“I am innocent!” the pilgrim cried. “I am most certainly innocent! And just as certainly, that roasted rooster will stand up and crow the moment I am hanged!” The magistrate’s guests laughed and jeered at the pilgrim’s proclamation. The magistrate frowned, glared at the hangman, and pointed to the door. As the hangman led the pilgrim out, the magistrate glanced at the roasted rooster out of the corner of his eye and pushed it aside. He had lost his appetite.

The hangman led the pilgrim to the gallows, grimly tied the noose around his neck, and pulled the trapdoor lever. At that very moment, at the magistrate’s house, the roasted rooster pushed aside the potatoes, shook off the garnish, stood up on the platter, and lustily crowed. The magistrate and his guests stared at the rooster with slack-jawed amazement. Divine intervention! An innocent man had been executed! They hurried to the gallows where they were astounded to find the pilgrim quite alive and standing by the gallows. The noose’s knot had come unfastened! Another miracle! The entire town celebrated the miracle and honored the pilgrim and then sent him on his way to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

Years later, the pilgrim returned to Barcelos and sculpted a cross out of stone to honor the Virgin Mary and St. James, whom he felt were responsible for saving him with the miracle of the roasted rooster. The cross stands to this very day in Barcelos and is called “Cruzeiro do Senhor do Galo - The Cross of the Lord of the Rooster.” And to this very day, you will find figurines and pictures of the Rooster of Barcelos everywhere you go in Portugal.

These two peacocks are showing off their beautiful plumage in a park in Evora, Portugal. Meanwhile, the peacocks’ pigeon assistants artfully arrange themselves in stairstep fashion in the background. Full disclosure: Peacocks are not chickens. Neither are pigeons.

The Portuguese Cooking School

One day we were educated on the fine art of Portuguese cooking at the Portuguese Cooking School in Evora, Portugal. Sofia, Maria, and Veva not only kept the sangria flowing throughout the class, but also did an excellent job of keeping all students from impaling themselves on any of the large and highly sharpened knives—two tasks that seem to be at odds with each other. The deliciousness we created included this: Pork marinated with red pepper sauce and garlic that tops potatoes roasted with rosemary, with a garnish of oranges and cilantro.

During a break in the class, I visited the coop at the back of the garden where I passed a greeting from my chickens and ducks on to Sofia’s chickens and ducks. I told Sofia that ducks were a new enterprise for me and that I was still learning about them. Sofia told me she was on a learning curve with ducks as well. She said she got her two ducks last year and was excited by the promise of duck eggs, and then, sadly, discovered that both ducks were boys.

This endearing ceramic chicken peeks from behind a plate in a Sintra, Portugal shop window.

Meanwhile, in Cascais, just south of Sintra on the coast, an attractive flock of chickens are pecking and scratching their way around a park.

The Eggs of Spain Stay Mainly on the Shelf

If you’ve seen My Fair Lady, you know about rain being confined mostly to the Spanish flatlands. But you may not know that eggs are never confined inside Spanish supermarket refrigerators.

I was reminded that eggs in Spain, and most of Europe, are sold unrefrigerated when I visited a supermarket in Toledo. These libres de jaula huevos de gallinas (cage-free chicken eggs) in the photo I shot are sitting on a regular old shelf at room temperature.

I’ve written previously about how the egg handling regulations are very different between the US and Europe. So much so that European eggs cannot legally be sold in the US, and vice versa. It’s all due to two very different approaches in preventing eggs from becoming contaminated by Salmonella and other bad bugs that can be present in a chicken coop.

Eggs come with their own natural container—the eggshell. While eggshells are porous, they are coated with a natural varnish called “bloom” or “cuticle” that prevents salmonella or anything else from entering the egg. The European approach is that bad bugs on the outside of the shell aren’t a problem since we only eat what’s on the inside. In the US, the worry is that millions of people handling, transporting, and using millions of eggs on a daily basis will result in in a certain number of people coming in contact with the bad bugs and getting sick, even if the bad bugs are mainly on the shells.

So, US law requires that all eggs must be washed in hot water with detergent, then sanitized and dried. While this process certainly cleans the eggs, it also washes off the bloom – that layer of “varnish” that keeps stuff from penetrating the porous eggshell. Once the bloom is gone, anything the egg comes in contact with can soak right through the eggshell. If salmonella or other bacteria soak through the shell, they find themselves in a wonderful, nutrient-rich environment and are so happy that they are soon at work churning out a bazillion little baby bacteria. To prevent each egg from becoming a little bacteria farm, the US requires that eggs, after washing, must be refrigerated. So, when you shop for eggs in the US, you head for one of those big refrigerated cases in the produce department.

Spain and the US, with their very different approaches to egg handling, both continue experience periodic large egg-associated salmonella outbreaks. Meanwhile, the UK, which like Spain does not refrigerate eggs, sees a fraction of the salmonella cases seen in either the US or Spain since it began a large-scale laying-hen vaccination program against salmonella in 1997.

Viewing and photographing wildlife can be challenging. But that’s simply not true with the European white stork. It’s huge, is not shy of humans, and builds large nests, often on top of buildings in urban areas. These storks were nesting atop the city hall in Merida, Spain. Please note: Storks share this attribute with peacocks and pigeons: They are not chickens.

Carmona Safari

Carmona is one of the many historic and stunningly beautiful white hilltop towns in Andalusia. It was already a town when the Phoenicians arrived almost 3000 years ago. It has since been conquered and ruled by every culture that has ruled Spain.

At the edge of the hilltop, where the hill drops steeply to the valley below, the Moors built a fortress against a wall constructed by the Romans. Later, King Pedro the Cruel remodeled that fortress into a castle for his mistress María de Padilla. While Pedro was entertaining Maria, his own wife was locked in a dungeon for eight years and was eventually executed. Pedro was killed by his own brother shortly after that. Today, Pedro and Maria’s lovenest is a parador; a hotel. And that’s where we stayed when we were in Carmona. Surely ghosts wander the corridors at night.

One evening, my wife, Kathy, and I left Pedro’s castle and took a pleasant evening stroll around Carmona that turned into a successful photo safari. An African photo safari is considered a success if one is able to find and photograph the "big five" animals - elephants, rhinos, leopards, lions, and buffalo. I decided that the Carmona "big four" consisted of donkeys, goats, feral kitties, and chickens. We were able to locate all four animals and we managed to get some good shots of all of them. Success!