The moon completely covers the sun during a total solar eclipse as seen from the Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory in in Arcos de las Salinas, near Teruel, Spain, Aug. 12. Reuters-Yonhap
MEDINACELI, Spain — Millions of people crowded cloudless cities and towns in Spain on Wednesday in search of the best views of a total solar eclipse, when the alignment of the sun, moon and Earth briefly plunged parts of the planet into darkness.
The crowds brought lawn chairs and umbrellas as they eagerly awaited the celestial spectacle, which began early in the evening. As the sky darkened, gradually at first and then quickly, people broke into applause and cheered. It was the country's first total solar eclipse in more than a century.
“It’s simply impossible to imagine,” Rosa Celiberti, a language teacher who watched from Medinaceli, a Roman-era hilltop town in northeast 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."
Across a wide band of northern and central Spain and Portugal, millions of people enjoyed some of mainland Europe's best views of the eclipse. It also passed over slivers of Greenland and Iceland.
