Just 16 days after the total solar eclipse, the Balearic Islands will look to the sky again. On the morning of Friday, August 28, the Earth's shadow will cover 93% of the Moon and will tinge a good part of the satellite with a reddish or brick-red hue.

After a reservation made at a small hotel in Fornalutx 13 months ago, an hour in the car searching for parking, and a walk I can only describe as a trek through hell, I managed to see the eclipse. This is where I could make a dramatic pause and write that thing about ‘expectations vs. reality’. My experience with the eclipse could be summarized in a series of items, but, above all, in the fact that the eclipse stinks. More than the astronomical phenomenon itself, the people. And if one is heavily pregnant with an overdeveloped sense of smell, the result of walking among hundreds of sweaty people, facing a two-kilometer uphill walk to reach the Picada tower in Sóller is ‘interesting’, to say the least. There are goats from the Serra that smell less than the people coming and going, their elbows dripping and with often pathetically chosen outfits.

At the time when the Moon had already begun to eclipse the Sun, a pair of German posers were clashing shopping bags from the golden mile stores and four Jehovah's Witnesses were waiting in vain to proselytize. As if an exceptional astronomical phenomenon were not about to occur. On the way to the terraces of Es Baluard, a street vendor was placing, bored, his straw hats. "Do you have glasses?". He shook his head because he knew they were asking him for the eclipse ones. Already at the top of the museum, a foreign couple had decided to cut in half the only pair they had and their children were looking at the Sun with one eye and covering the other with a hand.

There were reasons to fear the worst: an exceptional total solar eclipse coincided with one of the days of greatest human pressure of the year and with the Islands, especially Mallorca, becoming the center of world attention. It was like a stress test for islands that live at the limit of their capacity. And yet, the balance of August 12th is, despite the incidents, very positive.

The organization of the Feels Like Festival, which took place on Wednesday in Sant Antoni de Portmany coinciding with the total solar eclipse, has denied that the person who died of cardiac arrest was inside the event venue.

The total solar eclipse has left a day that will be etched in the memory of the Balearic Islands. But while thousands of people looked to the sky to contemplate how the Moon covered the king star, on land – and also at sea – other much more mundane scenes were unfolding. Robberies, rescues, drifting boats, missing persons, and even a ship fire were the darker side of an astronomical phenomenon that, in general terms, passed without major incidents.

The Balearic Sea also suffered the overcrowding caused by the solar eclipse. Images captured during the day by the Civil Guard show entire stretches of coast packed with boats, with thousands of boats anchored a short distance from each other and a particularly high density in some of the points with the best visibility of the phenomenon. A scene that turns into reality one of the main concerns that experts and environmental organizations had expressed before the eclipse: the possibility that the tourist overcrowding that is usually experienced on land would also extend to the sea.

In Manacor, the Na Molla park, the place recommended by the City Council just 300 meters from the urban center, has been filled with people to contemplate the solar eclipse in a familiar and relaxed way. An hour before, many had taken advantage of this green esplanade located next to IES Manacor, to set up their own camp, with chairs, tables, and something to snack on, in order to prepare for the phenomenon.

Like the Spanish national team, at the last minute. The thousands of people who chose the Variades area, in Sant Antoni de Portmany, this Wednesday to watch the eclipse, feared for twenty long minutes that the clouds would spoil the experience. Even some of the frustrated attendees began to whistle, following the logic of someone who would also applaud a sunset, as if the Sun could do anything about it. But just at the last second, the mixture of haze and clouds dissipated and at least the climax of the astronomical phenomenon could be contemplated: the 'diamond ring' effect just before the complete occultation; the halo of light when the Moon completely covers the Sun... A magical moment, even disturbing, if it weren't for the inevitable Ibizan soundtrack that accompanied it. And at full volume. The disco house that a DJ was playing at Café Mambo could be clearly heard from a good 400 meters away.

Some 400 privileged individuals were able to watch the eclipse from the top of El Toro, Menorca's highest peak, where attendees responded with applause to the spectacular moment when day suddenly darkened, as the Moon covered the Sun, which was already beginning to set.

Applause was heard as the Sun disappeared over the sea in Banyalbufar. A minute in the dark during which the Moon, shaped like an eyeball, covered the star. "I'm not staying to watch the eclipse, because I don't have my glasses on," a neighbor said goodbye as she crossed the group observing the sky in a small square.

“Ohhhh!”. The exclamation echoed across Playa de Palma as the Moon finished covering the Sun. And then came the applause. For a moment, the noise of the terraces, the alcohol, and the madness disappeared from this enclave of binge tourism. For one minute and 36 seconds, thousands of people (mostly foreigners) stopped looking at the sea, the sand, and their mobile phone screens to focus all their attention on a single point in the sky: the Sun. The Palma City Council had spent the day with a dance of figures: out of the 70,000 predicted, it ended up correcting itself saying it expected 30,000 attendees and finally said there were 60,000.

A couple of young people are about to cross the street in Plaça d'Espanya. They are not going to watch the eclipse. "We're leaving for home. We're scared to look at it," she says, while her boyfriend pulls her by the hand because the traffic light is about to turn red. She leaves without even explaining why she's scared. The sun is still shining brightly, but in the streets, you can tell it's not a normal day. For a moment, it seems like we've returned to the days of the pandemic: there are hardly any cars, you see closed shops, and traffic is much lower compared to any summer day.

The Balearic Islands experienced a total solar eclipse this Wednesday, August 12, 2026, the first visible in the Islands since 1905. It darkened the sky for just over a minute. On this same day, moreover, three more astronomical phenomena occurred (the Perseid meteor shower, the green flash, and the alignment of six planets).

Running out of certified glasses does not mean you have to miss out on the total solar eclipse. David Galadí-Enríquez, coordinator of the Scientific and Advisory Commission of the Eclipse Trio, proposes a "much safer and more fun" alternative, especially for children: building a pinhole camera with a cardboard box.

The hours leading up to the total Solar eclipse have seen the first protests over the occupation of some of Mallorca's most sought-after spots. At the port of Valldemossa, swimmers managed to get a yacht anchored on a Posidonia seagrass meadow to raise its anchor. At Trenc beach, the Government's Environment agents removed a large deployment of furniture that a group of workers from a luxury boat had installed on the sand to observe the phenomenon.

Astronomers and enthusiasts from the Balearic Islands are all set to observe the total solar eclipse this Wednesday afternoon. The phenomenon, which will be visible from the Islands in particularly unique conditions, promises to be an extraordinary visual spectacle, but will have little "scientific appeal" due to the difficulties that will arise in taking precise measurements.

Information updated at 5:10 PM. All planned restrictions on roads, access to natural areas, and parking lots to ensure safety during the eclipse are already in effect in the Balearic Islands. In Mallorca, access to the Serra de Tramuntana via the Ma-10 and about twenty other roads leading to viewpoints, coves, and spots where a large turnout is expected has been controlled since 3 PM.