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Spanish Tapas Explained - What Every Tourist in Spain Should Eat
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May 18, 2025
Are you heading to Spain and want to eat the best of what Spain has on offer? Well tapas will definitely be a part of your travels in Spain. From croquettes to patatas bravas there are so many small treats you can enjoy in Spain. Filmed in Spain #tapas #spanishtapas #foodieinspain Wolters World for Food! Our videos focus on helping travelers know what to eat when they travel, the traditional food that you always want to eat when you travel. Copyright Mark Wolters 2025 Our Main Channel: https://www.youtube.com/woltersworld Visit Our Amazon Store for Drinkware, cookingware, travel gear, and other necessities of life. http://www.amazon.com/shop/woltersworld Follow Jocelyn on Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/jocelynwoltersworld Follow Wolters World on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/woltersworld Follow Our Shorts Channel for quick travel tips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmSIWRrLCcqamLlTEEBLFLA
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Hey there, fellow hungry travelers. Mark here with Falters World, and today we're here in
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Córdoba, Spain. And today we're going to talk about are the tapas you should have when you
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come here to Spain. Because tapas, they're famous all over the world when you think about Spanish
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food. And the thing is, people don't always realize what all tapas variations there are
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when you're here. And I'll be honest with you, I'm only going to touch on the most popular kinds
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of tapas you'll see throughout the country to give you an idea of some of the things you should
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definitely take a bite of when you're going around Spain. And before I get started, I want
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you to understand what a tapa is. It's just a small plate of food and it could be something free that
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comes with a drink when you go to a bar or it might be something you order on your own to have snacks
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to share with friends but it's something that is truly quintessential for Spain and Spanish culture
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in terms of having that little bite to eat and I'm going to be honest with you if you miss the
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lunchtime hour and you can't wait until dinner at eight or nine o'clock at night tapas are going to
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get you through your time here in Spain but let's get talking about the actual tapas you want to
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have when you are here and probably the most famous tapa you'll see and you'll see that offered
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in all kinds of places from restaurants to hotels to tourist restaurants tourist joints to tapas
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bar all over is jamón y barico Spanish ham Iberian ham when you come it's that thinly sliced ham that
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they give you you know you'll see the big like ham legs there that they'll slice off these nice thin
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pieces it is fantastic it is a melt in your mouth good and it is wow that's kind of pricey pricey
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when you come here. So if you get the jamón y barico, make sure you look and see if it's by like
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100 grams or if it's a plate of it. Because if you say, oh, I'd like a lot of it, it might cost
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you a lot of money. So have a heads up for that, but it's well worth it. And just in general, like
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here in Spain, they love their cold cuts. They love their salamis, their chorizo, the sausages
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You can get that as well in some of the tapas places, but those are very popular. And another topic you can grab when you're back home, because it's popular all around the world
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is you get some of the Spanish cheeses, specifically manchego cheese, which is a dry goat cheese
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which I love. And honestly, that's one you need to have when you are here
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But jamón y barco and manchego cheese are things you can get back home. What are the toppings you need to have
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when you're here in Spain? And my number one favorite one, like we loved it so much
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that we had it at our wedding, patatas bravas. If you're not sure what patatas bravas are
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they're potatoes that are fried. You know, they'll cut them up or quarter them or make that little tiny potatoes
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and chop them up in it. They fry them and it's got this nice, crispy coating on it. They don't bread it. They just fry the potatoes and then they put this like
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garlic aioli and then a spicy like red aioli on top of it as well. The sauce, the brava sauce
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it's so good and you just have your little, you know, your little toothpicks and you share with
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your friends and you eat it and enjoy it and it goes great with the beer, the wine, whatever
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That's probably the most popular to share tapa you'll see around Spain and also my favorite one
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okay? Another really good one and number two on my list for things to have in terms of tapas
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are croquettes or croquettes And basically what it is you might have a ham croquette You seen I seen shrimp croquettes I seen cod croquettes It basically you have the meat the ham or whatever it is It in a dough kind of thing with made bechamel cheese in there
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And they have that. And then they bread it and they deep fry it. Or you fry it in a pan and it's just wonderful
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Usually you'll get like two or three or four at a time. Be careful because this is one of those things that if you're sitting with multiple people
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and you order it, you might want to distinguish if you want a tapas version or a racion
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Tapas is like two or three. Racion is a bigger plate, so it might have eight
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And when you get a racion, that's definitely going to cost you more. And racions are never free
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The tapas version might be something free with a drink. Now another tapa, and I don't know if I really call it a tapa
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but it's more of a thing that will show up on your table when you sit down. You'll see olives come up quite often as a little tapa thing
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so that might be something on the side. But another famous kind of tapa you'll have here is tortilla espanola
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or a Spanish omelet. And if you're thinking like a breakfast omelette, it's not like that
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It's actually a very firm egg and potato omelette that you'd have
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or I would say more of like a quiche kind of setup without the crust, like, you know, for the quiche
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You have that. You might have it in a bocadillo as a sandwich, or it might be by itself
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But yeah, the tortilla espanol, the Spanish omelette, you'll see that all over, and it's one you should have when you're here
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And if you're up by Barcelona and getting it, you might notice it might have a little green tinge to it
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because sometimes they put some veggies in there too. But in general, it's just eggs and potato and it's all over the place
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And as it can come in a sandwich or a bocadillo, I think a bocadillo, it's not necessarily a tapa, but it's a quick eat to have is a bocadillo, which is a basically, it looks like a submarine sandwich
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They have very good bread here. So all they do is they just cut it down the middle and they just put the jamon y verico on there or they might put the tortilla espanola on there
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It's not like a Subway sandwich with 90 different layers. It's like a simple one
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Like it has just the ham or it has just the tortilla espanola on there. So you can have that as a snack
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And sometimes what they'll do with it up is they'll cut up into little small pieces and they give that out as tapas as well at bars
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And if I'm sticking to the bread option, if you're in the Basque country, and I saw this actually a lot in Catalonia as well, they have what are called pinchos
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And pinchos, it's a piece of bread and on top of the bread there'll be seafood or there'll be meat or there'll be some kind of veggie
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There's a thing that's on top of the bread and you eat it with the bread that way
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It's fantastic. If you see a place that has pinchos, you just kind of go up and just start selecting a lot of different ones and you'll be happy
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I mean, that's one of my favorite things to eat in the Basque Country. And if you want to go really simple, a simple tapa that you're really going to like is actually potato chips here in Spain
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No joke, Spain does fantastic potato chips. They know how to fry their potatoes, whether it's a potato chip or for Potatas Bravas or even French fries if you want
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You can get those here too. But honestly, just potato chips, Potatas Bravas, they know their stuff
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Oh, you got it. Now, if you want a Galician specialty from the northwest of the country, and you get it
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a lot more places now, it's spread throughout the country, are Pimientos de Padron
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And these are little peppers that they cook up They you know they grill them up a little bit put some salt on there and you have them I don know if you coming from the U You thinking peppers oh are they spicy Nine times out of ten no They more very smooth flavor They very healthy
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You feel like healthy eating those when you're there, but occasionally there'll be one that has
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a little spice. So do be aware of that. So if you're getting to your kids, if they're like, oh, it's hot and you're like, no, they're not. Just know there's like one in your plate that might
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have a little kick to it. But that's one that really is a Galician thing. Like, so if you're on the Camino de Santiago and you go to Santiago you want to have that when you're there but
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it pops up all over the country. Now Spain is surrounded by the sea so obviously there's some
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seafood tapas you can have when you're here. Little fried up calamari you know the chiperones you can
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get that. Sometimes you'll see cuttlefish on there. You can get grilled octopus from Galicia. I mean
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there's a lot of little seafood tapas you can have that are very nice but probably the one you're
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going to see the most outside of the the fried squid the calamari kind of stuff are the gambas
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And gambas are shrimp. There's a few different ways you can have it. My personal favorite is the gambas a la jillo, which is basically shrimp cooked in garlic, the best way to call it
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They'll have slices of garlic in there. It usually comes in a little ceramic bowl. They'll cook it in and they'll give it to you
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Serves at night. Very easy. Not very heavy either. So that can be a good top as if you're looking for something to kind of tide you over before you go eat a big meal at dinner
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Now another popular one I see that I get given away quite often because I think they're probably a cheaper one to make is albondingas
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And albondingas, they're just meatballs. You have meatballs and kind of like a tomato sauce. That's kind of a popular one. And I will warn you, there's one that looks like it's a meatball, but it's not
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It's called a bomba, a potato bomb. And it's a big round fried ball of mashed potatoes
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And they might put meat and there'll be spices and herbs and they might put meat inside the meatball
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or you might like have a ragu poured on the top of it, but it's actually really good when that's
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more popular from Barcelona. But that's a nice one to have but you see you think oh that's a big
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meatball. No no no it's a big fried mashed potato ball with some meat on it. That's another good
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thing. So yeah if you want if you're looking for your circular food that could be an option
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Now for my vegetarian friends or people that want to actually try to fit a few veggies into their
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tapas while they're getting ready for dinner. One of the ones I really enjoyed it's from Catalunya
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which is really good but you can find another place around the country is escalivada and what
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it is it's roasted red peppers eggplant and onion and oil and sometimes you'll put it on bread i
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actually had it where they gave it to me on top of a of a sausage okay so you can have that but
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honestly if it just comes by itself get the bread you just put some on there smush it on there and
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eat it that's a really good kind of i don't know if it'd be healthy with all the oil they have on
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it but it's a really tasty veggie option and the thing is when you're looking at tapas the reason
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why you want to do that is the Spanish are very much outgoing people. They like to be outside
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hanging out with friends, being with their friends, meeting new people, and going to tapas gives you a chance to meet locals Either you just practice a bit of your basic Spanish it go a long way And having those tapas having a bite to eat where you can try different things it gives you an opportunity to talk to people when they like Hey so what tapa did you like You can say Well I really love the potatoes
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bravos, but those croquetas from grandma were pretty good too. And it gives you a way to kind of interact with the locals. And
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if you're going to be going to a tapas bar, just know that they're open all day long, they're open through the
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evening. And some restaurants, tapas are the only foods they have in the afternoon when the kitchens do close. So you'll
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notice on some menus it'll have tapas and then it'll have like appetizers. You're like, wait
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aren't they the same thing? No, appetizers are different than tapas. I mean, tapas can work as
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an appetizer, but the kind of mental side of it, a tapa is more of a little top on your drink to
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keep the flies away while you're chatting with your friends, right? That's what it's more about
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And it really works as a great snack. If you're traveling in Spain with kids, there's a lot of
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them on there that kids do like. Like I know when we came with our kids, we've been to Cordoba here with our kids a few times, and they just nibbled on those things that made our life a lot easier in
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the afternoon. So it can end up being your actual dinner option or your lunch option, your afternoon
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snack option. That's kind of a nice thing because there really are tons of options when it comes to
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tapas. And honestly, I obviously didn't get all the tapas that are on there because you, I mean
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I'm sure I'm showing some menus here. They have a ton more tapas. These are just my favorite ones
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that I think tourists will really enjoy. What are your favorite tapas? Put it down below so we can
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help other travelers find other good tapas to enjoy when they're here in Spain. And I'll be
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honest with you, if you're going to be traveling around the country, make sure you try the tapas
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that are popular in that region because they'll be even better than in other parts
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That's why Pimentas de Padrón, yes, you can get it in Barcelona, but you should have it in Galicia on the complete other side of the country
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The squid, it's squid Andalusiana, you should have it when you're in Andalusia
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not just in Madrid. I think another thing important to mention about the tapas is usually people are drinking wine
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or they're having a Tinto de Verano or they're having their sangria or they're having their beer
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with their friends while they're having their tapas to have a kind of a conversational time together
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you don't have to drink alcohol to enjoy tapas because i've had a few people ask me about that
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like can i get tapas and go do that if i'm drinking soda or or a non-alcoholic beverage yeah it's
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totally fine the spaniards won't judge you for that so don't worry okay so i hope i helped uh
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whet your appetite for a little quick bite to eat when you are here in spain because honestly these
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tapas really make the food for me that's the top the best like i like it better than paella i like
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like it better than the black rice. I like it better than the fideo. I'm a tapas guy when I
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come to Spain. Every meal I gotta have something and I'm thinking I'm gonna have some patatas bravas
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today and maybe some croquettes as well. Have yourself a great time. I wish you well. Have a
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great time here in Spain. Eat well my friends. If you want more videos about eating in Spain we've
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got you know what to eat in Spain like for a full range of foods. We've got what to eat in Barcelona
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We've got what to eat in Girona. Like all kinds of things to help out other travelers eating and
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enjoying their time here in Spain. So check us out our website at waltersworld.com for that
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and you'll find us on all the social medias at Waltersworld. Bye there, fellow hungry travelers
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