---
title: "Total Solar Eclipse 12 August 2026: Best Places to Watch, Safely "
description: For two minutes and eighteen seconds, somewhere over the Greenland Sea, day will turn briefly into night. It is the first total solar eclipse to touch Spain ...
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-08-11T05:00:00.000Z
updated: 2026-08-11T16:48:34.379Z
canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/total-solar-eclipse-12-august-2026-best-places-to-watch-safely
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-silhouette-of-a-group-of-friends-relaxing-on-a-hill-overlook-772668.jpg
categories: Destinations
content_type: News
region: Europe
publication: Rich Travel Magazine
access: members
schema_type: Article
---

At 11.59pm local time, on the uninhabited Taymyr Peninsula in Siberian Russia, the sun will dip below the horizon and immediately begin rising again, since above the Arctic Circle in August it barely sets at all. That strange, technical sunrise marks the start of one of the more unusual eclipse paths in recent memory, one that loops up and over the North Pole before dropping down onto Earth's more familiar geography. By the time it reaches Europe, on the afternoon of 12 August 2026, it will be delivering the first total solar eclipse mainland Europe has seen since 1999.

## Where the sky actually goes dark

The path of totality, the narrow corridor where the moon completely blocks the sun, crosses eastern Greenland, the west coast of Iceland, the northern half of Spain and a small corner of Portugal, before running out over the Balearic Sea near Mallorca. Outside that narrow band, a much wider swathe of the world, including the UK, Ireland, most of Europe, north-west Africa and the northern edge of the United States and Canada, will see a partial eclipse instead, with well over 90 per cent of the sun obscured in many places.

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