The first day of summer; June 21st; the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a time marked by most ancient cultures as the most important day in the calendar, and probably the New Year as well.
But there’s no need to spend “Midsummer” buried in your history books, there are several cities in Europe that have summer solstice festivals today. “Midsommar” for example is one of Sweden’s most important holidays, and with a winter so cold it’s easy to see why.
Because the Earth orbits the sun in an ellipse, there’s no single earliest sunrise and latest sunset, rather these vary by a few days depending on where you live in the Northern Hemisphere.
In terms of that singular moment when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky of the year, it will occur at 10:58 on the east coast of America, but at 14:58 for Central Europeans.
There are several ways that you or your friends and family can enjoy the solstice. English Heritage, a government non-profit, hosts a livestream of the moment of sunrise at Stonehenge, perhaps the world’s most famous monument to be attuned to the solstice. The 2023 stream starts a few hours before sunrise which is 04:49 BST.
Summer Solstice taken by the Himawari-8
Other events like this include Manhattanhenge, where Americans can see the sunrise climb perfectly above the east-west streets of that most famous urban island. The most famous spot for Manhattanhenge photos is the elevated Tudor City Bridge on 42nd Street.
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14th, 23rd, and 34th streets are all additionally good spots to see the sunrise.
If you prefer a festival to a spectacle, the most raucous ones are in Europe. The Secret Solstice Music Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, attracts some 8,000 visitors yearly, and is a perfect way to celebrate summer with people who can truly appreciate the opportunity to wear short sleeves. The highlight is seeing the headlining band perform under the midnight sun.
Iceland’s neighbor Sweden has turned the solstice into a national holiday. In fact, it has been suggested as Sweden’s de facto National Day, which this year falls on June 23rd. Here like in Iceland, the sky never truly darkens, and festivities often go on through the night.
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On the Visit Stockholm website, one can read all about celebrating it in the big city, or in the surrounding countryside where flower picking, garland wearing, and raising of the Maypole, are still the chief activities.
In Egypt, you can see the sunset between the Pyramids of Giza, while on the island of Orkey, one can see the sunrise paired in perfect alignment with the Standing Stones of Sternness, perhaps even older than Stonehenge.
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