The tiny, almost deserted village of Avellanosa de Muñó in northern Spain is preparing for one extraordinary night that could turn it into one of the most talked-about places on the planet, the BBC reported.
In Avellanosa de Muñó, in the northern Spanish province of Burgos, the silence feels almost total. There are no shops and no restaurants. There is a bar that has not opened in years, and a wine cellar that will never again receive visitors.
Yet the village is not entirely still. Large carpenter bees buzz over lavender bushes scorched by the summer sun. Swallows dart between the stone rooftops, and in the distance a lone tractor hums, one of the few signs of human activity left. Once a week, a white van from a nearby bakery drives through the narrow streets delivering bread to the handful of residents, briefly breaking the usual calm.
That is how life has passed for the village's few remaining inhabitants, in a place where most days almost nothing happens. This summer, that is set to change.
On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse will cross the Atlantic Ocean, the first visible from mainland Europe since 1999. According to Madrid-based physicist Maria Teresa López Sánchez, it will be the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Spain since 1912.
Totality will only be visible along a narrow band crossing Europe, and Avellanosa de Muñó sits right at its centre. The surrounding landscape makes the spot especially appealing: golden wheat fields, low hills and an open western horizon free of tall buildings, along with almost no artificial light and far fewer people than better-known viewing sites.
Two sunsets in one evening
What makes this eclipse especially unusual is its timing. It will occur shortly before sunset, meaning observers will witness two dusks in a single evening.
López described it as like living through two sunsets within a few minutes.
After nightfall, the Perseid meteor shower will also be visible in the sky, making the coincidence of astronomical events genuinely rare.
A village that once had 200 residents
Sara Álvarez Rodríguez, an 89-year-old resident born in the village in 1937 who has never moved away, advises visitors to climb up to the local cave. She said everything can be seen from there.
She recalled that around 200 people lived in the village in the 1950s. Several shops operated then, and local traders even delivered fish to neighbouring villages by bicycle.
Raúl Grande Revilla, 73, who grew up in the village before moving to Madrid as a child, remembers a postman who delivered mail on a donkey. The animal knew the route so well that it stopped by itself at every house and at the local post office.
For generations, residents lived off farming, vineyards, vegetable gardens and livestock. As agriculture became mechanised, work grew scarce and people moved away in large numbers to Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona and other cities.
Today more goats graze on the surrounding hills than there are permanent residents in the village, and only a handful of farmers now work amid vast sunflower plantations where fields once stood.
Eclipse brings families home
This summer, the rare astronomical event is drawing many former residents back to their home village.
Raúl Grande will return with his wife, son, grandchildren, friends and other relatives. His brother will also bring his own children, a grandchild and his sister.
Their family alone will increase the village's population by around 20 people, effectively doubling the number of people present that night.
According to Sara Álvarez, other residents will also be hosting friends and relatives, arriving not only from different regions of Spain but from the United Kingdom, France and Venezuela.
Lucrezia López, a professor in the geography department at the University of Santiago de Compostela, said such unique events help people rediscover places they once had ties to.
The Parador de Lerma hotel, housed in the former palace of the Duke of Lerma near the village, was fully booked as far back as 2022.
Alberto Bosque Coello, a representative of the tourism board of the Castilla y León region, said the same pattern is being seen across the whole area. He said almost all accommodation had been booked well in advance, with eclipse enthusiasts seeking out not the most famous location but the one offering the best viewing conditions.
Raúl Grande also mentioned a family from California planning to travel to Spain specifically for the eclipse. To make sure visiting tourists do not stay in Madrid and miss totality, he personally went door to door in Avellanosa de Muñó looking for households willing to host guests.
He believes the small village is the best place in Spain to witness one of the most spectacular astronomical events of the decade.
Eclipses driving tourism elsewhere
Solar eclipses have triggered similar tourist rushes elsewhere. Hotels in Dunedin, New Zealand, have been booked out two years in advance as the city prepares for its first total solar eclipse in 850 years, due to occur at 16:17 on July 22, 2028, when the moon will cast a shadow roughly 100 kilometres wide across part of the country's south, plunging areas from Queenstown to Dunedin into total darkness for almost three minutes.
