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The online forums are abuzz as people debate potential cloud cover and trade tips on the best viewing points. Hours before wide swathes of Spain were set to experience the country’s first total solar eclipse in more than a century, the excitement was palpable.
“It’s going to be spectacular,” said César González, an astronomer and science communicator at the Madrid Planetarium. “A total solar eclipse is one of the best spectacles in nature.”
He planned to wake up early on Wednesday and drive north towards the Spanish city of Burgos. “And the first isolated field I find, where I can see the horizon and the sky is clear, that’s where I’ll stay. I’ll spend the whole day there waiting,” he said. “There are no words to describe it to another person who has never felt or seen a total solar eclipse.”
Officials have estimated that as many as 6 million people could flock to the eclipse path on Wednesday, which stretches about 200km from A Coruña in Spain’s northwest to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. A small strip of Portugal and parts of Greenland and Iceland will also experience the rare total eclipse.
Tens of millions more will be watching across western Europe, with the path of the eclipse virtually blocking out the sun in many countries including the UK, France, Belgium, Switzerland and northern Italy.
But Spain is poised to experience some of the best views in mainland Europe, said González. “The band of affected land [to watch the totality] is very small,” he said. “It will also be seen in parts of Greenland and Iceland, where the visibility conditions due to the weather are much worse. So the only country in the whole world where it is possible to contemplate the total eclipse in good conditions is Spain.”
An estimated 460,000 have travelled to the country to take in the celestial alignment, with hotels reporting bookings made months in advance from as far afield as Japan and the US. More than 300,000 of them are expected to head to the towns and villages of rural Spain as they seek the best spot to view the less than two minutes in which the moon will cast a shadow on the Earth.
“I’m so excited to see it,” said Angela Jones Rieksts from the eastern Canadian city of Halifax. She spoke to the Guardian as she was making her way to Burgos with her 21-year-old daughter.
Her first experience of a total solar eclipse had been around two years ago and closer to home, in the Canadian city of Miramichi. “I was just absolutely awestruck,” she said. “It felt almost like God’s eye was staring back at me from heaven.”
The experience brought her to tears and turned her into a self-professed eclipse chaser, she said. “When it was over, I said to myself, ‘I have to see this again’.”
Her enthusiasm was echoed across much of Spain; most opticians and pharmacies reported being sold out of solar eclipse glasses while the Spanish airline Iberia said it would share live images from a charter flight aimed at viewing the eclipse from 10,000 metres above sea level. Even Madrid’s Prado Museum sought to get in on the action, publishing a video that used AI to reimagine how the eclipse would transform the light of its masterpieces.
Officials across Spain have long worked to prepare for the event, readying for up to 1.5 million additional car journeys. With weather alerts forecasting temperatures of up to 40C and a high risk of wildfires, more than 24,000 police officers are to be deployed.
For France’s Stéphanie Racco, the journey to see Wednesday’s eclipse had been months in the making. “I read the news around December,” she said. “I said, ‘OK, I have to go’. Because the last eclipse I saw was in 1999, north of Paris. And it was fantastic and something I want to share with my kids.”
Last Thursday, she and her eight-year-old twins set off from the Côte d’Azur, leisurely making their way to Salou, a resort town south of Barcelona.
She was surprised to find that her family were outliers among the scores of other tourists. “I think I’m the only one in this hotel who has come just for the eclipse,” she said with a laugh.
As those around her flocked to the nearby beaches and aquatic parks, she was focused on researching exactly where to head on Wednesday. “Salou could be a good spot, but I’m not sure because I’m seeing a lot of clouds,” she said, explaining that she was ready to drive “for a few hours into the countryside” if needed. “So it might be a bit freestyle.”
If all else failed, however, she was ready with a backup plan, albeit one that required patience and far more travel. “I just saw that next year, there will be one in Egypt,” she said. “So maybe if I miss this one, I’ll try again next year.”
