(Gray News) – A rare total solar eclipse is expected to dazzle people in parts of Spain, Portugal and Iceland on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Daytime darkness will descend as the moon, sun and Earth will perfectly align in the sky. Starting near the North Pole before making its way south, the moon\u2019s shadow will take about 1 1\/2 hours to make its trek, ending in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Totality, when the moon\u2019s shadow completely blocks out the sun, will last up to 2 minutes and 18 seconds. Maximum totality will occur off Iceland\u2019s west coast. By the time it reaches parts of Portugal and then Spain just before sunset, totality will last about a minute.<\/p>\n
Millions of people are expected to watch the spectacle.<\/p>\n
In both Spain and Iceland, demand for hotels in the path of totality has soared. Iceland is expecting an additional 20,000 overseas visitors during its already busy peak tourism season.<\/p>\n
\u201cEclipse time, of course, has been very demanding, and many people came to us early, like last year,\u201d hotel owner and manager Stein\u00fe\u00f3r J\u00f3nsson said.<\/p>\n
Sverre Rudd, the captain of a cruise, is circling the waters near Greenland in order to position the ship in the perfect spot for his 126 passengers to experience the totality.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is very enthusiastic,\u201d Rudd said. \u201cWhen we were down for breakfast earlier, it was almost like a little bit of a Christmas Eve feeling here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solar eclipse glasses, necessary for viewing even part of the eclipse, are selling fast. Markets, department stores, museums and planetariums across Spain have been selling the glasses for months, and many are now reporting they\u2019ve run out of stock.<\/p>\n
Those not in the direct path of totality will still get a show. Parts of Africa, Siberia and even the northern U.S. will experience partial eclipses.<\/p>\n
For those who cannot see the solar eclipse in person, several space agencies are offering free livestreams<\/a> of the event. NASA\u2019s coverage<\/a> will begin at 1:15 p.m. ET while the European Space Agency\u2019s official livestream<\/a> will begin at 1:30 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Gray News) – A rare total solar eclipse is expected to dazzle people in parts of Spain, Portugal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13062,27356,27353,25138,17,27355,27354,12399],"class_list":["post-69676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-iceland","tag-iceland-total-eclipse","tag-rare-total-sunset-solar-eclipse","tag-solar-eclipse","tag-spain","tag-spain-prepares-for-total-eclipse","tag-spain-solar-eclipse","tag-total-solar-eclipse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}