Millions of people gathered across Spain on Wednesday to witness the country’s first total solar eclipse in more than a century, as the rare celestial event briefly plunged parts of the country into darkness.
Crowds packed cities and towns along the eclipse’s path, with spectators carrying lawn chairs, umbrellas and specially designed eclipse glasses as they waited for the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth.
As the moon gradually covered the sun, the sky darkened before plunging into near darkness, prompting cheers and applause from spectators who had gathered for the spectacle.
“It’s simply impossible to imagine,” Rosa Celiberti, a language teacher who watched the eclipse from the Roman-era hilltop town of Medinaceli in northeastern Spain, said with tears in her eyes. “No matter how many photos or videos you’ve seen, nothing comes even close to what it actually feels like.”
The eclipse was visible across a broad stretch of northern and central Spain and Portugal, providing some of mainland Europe’s clearest views. It also crossed parts of Greenland and Iceland before moving over the Mediterranean.
Totality, the period when the moon completely blocks the sun, lasted less than two and a half minutes at its maximum, with the longest duration recorded off Iceland’s west coast. In Portugal and Spain, where the eclipse occurred close to sunset, totality lasted about a minute.
The spectacle was expected to attract at least 500,000 additional visitors to Spain, with demand for accommodation surging in cities along the path of totality, including A Coruña, Bilbao and Santiago de Compostela.
The event also coincided with a period of extreme summer heat and ongoing wildfire threats across Spain, prompting authorities to mount a major public safety operation.
Temperatures exceeded 35 degrees Celsius in several areas where the eclipse was visible, while about 350 official viewing sites were established across the country’s sparsely populated interior.
The Spanish Interior Ministry said more than 33,500 law enforcement officers were deployed to viewing locations and access routes to manage the large crowds and ensure public safety.
The eclipse came only weeks after Spain suffered its most destructive wildfire on record, with about 500 square kilometres burned in Ávila and tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate. Several smaller fires were also still active in parts of southern and central Spain.
In Iceland, hundreds of people gathered outside Reykjavík’s landmark Hallgrímskirkja church despite heavy cloud and rain.
The crowd watched as the skies darkened and the glow of mobile phones became visible in the square. Spectators cheered as darkness fell and again when daylight returned, before quickly dispersing.
The eclipse also triggered a rush for protective glasses across Spain. Supermarkets, museums, planetariums, pharmacies and department stores had sold or distributed the specialised glasses for months, with several pharmacies reporting shortages ahead of the event.
In Madrid, a queue formed outside a photography shop on Tuesday after a sign advertised the availability of eclipse glasses.
The event also drew spectators to remote parts of Greenland. The captain of the MS Spitsbergen, Sverre Rud, navigated the vessel around Rypefjord in eastern Greenland in an effort to secure clear viewing conditions for its 126 passengers. “I will do my best,” Rud said. “I will pull out my superman powers.”
For passengers on the 17-day cruise, the eclipse provided a dramatic interruption to the 24-hour daylight they had experienced in locations north of the Arctic Circle.
“Everyone is very enthusiastic,” Rud said. “When we were down for breakfast earlier, it was almost like a little bit of a Christmas Eve feeling here.”
The eclipse also delivered a major boost to tourism and accommodation prices, particularly in Iceland, where Reykjavík hotel rooms averaged more than $1,000 for Wednesday night.
According to Lighthouse Intelligence, prices were roughly twice 2025 levels as tourists arrived for Iceland’s first total solar eclipse since 1954 and the first visible from Reykjavík since 1433.
Authorities had expected as many as 20,000 additional international visitors during an already busy peak tourist season in the country, which has a population of fewer than 400,000.
The 70-room Hotel Keflavík was fully booked, with guests hoping to catch about one minute and 45 seconds of totality.
“Eclipse time, of course, has been very demanding, and many people came to us early, like last year,” said hotel owner and manager Steinþór Jónsson.
Jónsson compared the demand with the 1986 Reykjavík summit between then-US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. “When I opened the hotel, we had Reagan and Gorbachev meeting. It was very hectic here,” he said. “Besides Reagan and Gorbachev, the eclipse is the biggest.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
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