Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 9th of

April, which means that there's now, well, about 26 months before the next total solar eclipse,

and I will get on to that later. But first, I am speaking to you from Montreal,

where after the extraordinary site,

and extraordinary, or extraordinary,

was the word that I heard more than ever yesterday.

Of the total solar eclipse,

I went out and enjoyed a fantastic salt beef sandwich at Schwartz's delicatessen, which has been serving them up since 1928.

No, I wasn't at the opening. Thank you. I've got for you today my commentary, which was going on as the eclipse was going on.

So you might want to have a listen to the excitement there, not of me, but of the crowd.

And I think the most powerful thing, having been lucky enough to witness a couple of total solar

eclipses before, was to see it when you are in the company of a couple of

hundred thousand other people absolutely transformative just the sound of awe i thought anyway

have a listen yourself i can for the first time look directly into the sun as the moment of totality begins.

The moon won four hundredth of the size of the sun, but four hundred times closer, is about completely to obscure the sun.

You will be able to see night descending across the city.

And for about 90 seconds this land will be in total darkness.

Thank you. A tiny fraction of humanity has ever witnessed a total eclipse.

I can just see the black disc of the moon which is obscuring the sun perfectly. There is still light leaking from the sun.

And you can see dazzling diamonds. That's actually coming through.

Do you believe the lunar valleys? The whole city looks as though sunset has suddenly come.

You can see just to the west and to the north the way that there is still daylight.

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