The eclipse chasers had come from far and wide. After studying the path of totality and combing through weather data, they had decided that Port de Sóller on the west coast of Mallorca was the place to be. It was right on the centre line of the eclipse’s path, meaning there would be one minute and 36 seconds of totality, when the moon would completely block the sun. That was a whole 30 seconds longer than you’d be getting in, say, Valencia.
They booked hotels over a year in advance, bought their special glasses, and discussed the best viewing spots on forums. Totality would be reached just after 8.30pm, when the sun had almost set. A clear view out to the horizon was essential. Port de Sóller’s horseshoe bay was somewhat annoying for the occasion, as the eclipse would only be visible from a 20-metre stretch in the middle of the beach. But no matter – they would get there early.
The crowd began to form on Wednesday morning, staking their spots with beach umbrellas and camera tripods. As I walked down the promenade at 5pm, the sky was unimpeachably blue and the sun was revelling in its final hours of nudity. It was 36°C and many of the eclipse chasers had turned a vivid shade of lobster. Martin Parr would be having a field day.
The last time Mallorca had a total eclipse was the summer of 1905. Local newspapers wrote about residents shutting themselves indoors, fearful that the celestial event was a harbinger of doom. Nightly banquets were put on for visiting astronomers, and a reporter described the influx of visitors as “the vibrant manifestation of tourism at its peak”. In fact, he said, “one can see what it may become, and what is already on its way to becoming: the traveller industry.”
More than 120 years later, many in Mallorca feel that tourism has gone beyond its limit. The island received 13.5 million tourists in 2025, according to official figures. House prices have nearly doubled in the last decade, driven by a rise in Airbnb rentals and foreign second homeowners.
Mallorca has a permanent population of just under a million, and at the peak of the tourism season, the strain is felt by all. The island is currently enduring its fourth heatwave of the summer, and water rationing is in place in the bohemian village of Deià, including at the five-star La Residencia hotel, a favourite haunt of Sienna Miller and Dua Lipa.
There are around 30 flights a day from London airports to Mallorca’s capital, Palma, in the summer months, with one-way fares as cheap as £17 – less than half the price of a train to Clacton-on-Sea. Brits get their fix of fishbowl cocktails and foam parties in the resort town of Magaluf, which they affectionately refer to as “Shagaluf”. Several protests against mass tourism have taken place this summer, including a 25,000-strong demonstration in Palma which descended into violence when police used rubber bullets and batons to disperse the crowd.
The town of Sóller has become a victim of its own loveliness. In the main square, there’s a breathtaking neo-Gothic church which decorates the Instagram grids of many travel influencers. The drivers of an old wooden tram connecting the town with the port often have to sound the horn multiple times to shift tourists standing on the tracks, laser-focused on getting the aesthetically pleasing selfies they travelled all this way for.
On the Saturday morning before the eclipse, Sóller was uncharacteristically quiet. The cafés in the square were closed, and there was no sign of the weekend market. Then came the sound of drumming, and the warble of Catalonian bagpipes, as a protest organised by the group Menys Turisme, Més Vida (Less Tourism, More Life) kicked off. A few befuddled holidaymakers who hadn’t got the memo retreated into doorways on narrow side streets to allow the protestors to pass. They piled into the main square, chanting “turisme és colonialisme” and brandishing homemade signs, including a slightly moot World Cup reference that said “The only thing coming home is you”.
Most of the protesters said that they were not angry at tourists themselves, but at the tourism industry. Stephen Goodehill, a permaculturist who grew up in nearby Valldemossa, reckoned that blaming the tourists was like “going to an industrial cattle house and bullying the cow”. That’s not to say that the hordes weren’t a blight on his life. “I have been to the beach once in 2026,” he said. “Living in paradise is not paradise when you are pushed out of your territory because of the stink of sun cream and the faeces in the water. That’s not fishes, by the way – very different”.
Some protestors felt that the eclipse was a white elephant. “That day will be awful. It’s a day to stay home – everything’s going to be packed,” said 27-year-old Marc Palmer, from Palma. Others failed to see what the big celestial fuss was about. “It’s just an eclipse, like, come on,” shrugged Anna Llaveria, who carried a sign comparing tourists to settlers. “It’s making life so complicated right now. It’s absurd.” Road closures and police cordons were planned across the west of the island on eclipse day to ensure that hotspots didn’t become overcrowded.
As the sun and the moon drew closer together on Wednesday, I hiked up to the cliffs above the port. It was meant to be blocked off, but the police tape and cones had been kicked down hours before, and thousands were gathered along the rocky path. I put my eclipse glasses on, and thought to myself that the sun looked a bit like an Ikea lampshade, floating in a sea of black. Then the moon started taking a bite out of the lamp. An American man proposed to his entirely unsurprised girlfriend as his friend filmed. The crowd applauded.
Ten minutes before totality, some wispy, innocuous clouds began to form. They were pathetic, really, but they trailed across the remaining sliver of sun and started to diffuse the light. The atmosphere curdled. Eight minutes, five minutes, two minutes, and the clouds were still there. The guys on the beach earlier had told me that in Dallas, the clouds had parted at the last minute, as if the hand of god were sweeping them aside. But as we entered totality, the thing was mostly obscured. It was still kind of amazing, but only kind of. The sky got darker, and the cicadas stopped. There were some whoops and cheers as the clouds revealed flashes of the sun’s corona, and then it was over. A windscreen wiper of light spread across the sky, and the sun, now a blood red crescent, began to set into the sea. The cicadas didn’t bother starting up again.
I met a group of 15 dejected Americans who had been planning this trip for a year and a half. “This was the first one I’ve been clouded out on,” sighed Holly Gilbert, a solar physicist who used to work at Nasa. “We were three for three before this,” added her husband, Jeff. “It was fun right before,” said Holly with a sad smile. “But we missed it – we all missed it.” Robbed of our transcendental moment, we began to troop home.
I swiped through the videos I had taken. My phone couldn’t quite pick up the rather subtle beauty of our clouded-out eclipse. It looked like a mid-rate sunset; not even Instagram-worthy. I thought of the protestors who had stayed at home to avoid the crowds, and felt that they might smile at this cosmic joke. After all, it’s just an eclipse.
[Further reading: Ceuta after the migrant surge]
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