It’s traditional to wear a bit of green on St. Patrick’s Day, but holiday revelers will also see plenty of green this year as hundreds of monuments and landmarks outside of Ireland light up for the occasion.
The London Eye and Selfridges department store on Oxford Street are among the sites that will be bathed in green lights in Great Britain.
In Paris, the Irish Embassy (of course), the Petit Palais, Galeries Lafayette and Sacré-Cœur Basilica are just a few of the French facades on the going-green list.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Colosseum in Rome, the Christ the King statue in Lisbon, the Great Wall of China and notable attractions in Brazil, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, and many other countries will also turn green for St. Patrick’s Day as part of Tourism Ireland’s “Global Greening” campaign.
The initiative, now in its eighth year, marks the beginning of the high tourism season in Ireland and “conveys the message that Ireland offers the warmest of welcomes and great fun, as well as wonderful scenery and heritage,” said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, in a statement.
About four dozen iconic sites throughout the United States are also going green on St. Patrick’s Day, including the Empire State Building in New York, Navy Pier and a dozen other spots in Chicago, City Hall in San Francisco and the iconic “Welcome” sign in Las Vegas.
And in Canada, Whistler ski resort, the Calgary Tower and the Big Fiddle of Ceilidh (Fidheal Mhor A’ Ceilidh) will go green as will both the Canadian and U.S. sides of Niagara Falls, which will light up at the top of the hour every hour for 15 minutes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. on March 17.
“Any time the Niagara Falls Illumination Board can light the Falls with colors for a good cause, we are happy to do it,” said John Percy, president and CEO of Destination Niagara USA. “And, with the new LED lights that were unveiled at Niagara Falls in December 2016, the colors we display are now brighter and better than ever.”
See the full list of “Global Greening” participants here.