The final destination on my sister's vacation were the cliffs of Étretat. It's a place that I have been to and written about many times but it's such a beautiful place and hike that I could go there every year and not get bored by it. Hopefully you feel the same about my posts.
Étretat was probably one of the most naturally stunning locations that I had been to in all of France - definitely among the top 5 for sure. This made it a great location to end my sister's vacation in the country.
The town was about a three hour drive from where I lived at the time but the drive was worth it in my opinion. There was a large free parking lot located right as we entered the city, about a 10-15 minute walk in to the center. You could also try to find parking along the street or pay for parking in the town itself in the large lot by the beach. That is if you're willing to pay for the convenience. A 15 minute walk was fine for us, so we took the free option.
Étretat is located in a sort of valley between two cliffs and you can hike either side of them, or both, if you have the time and energy to do so.
If I'm only going to do one side then I always choose the right side - right when looking out towards the sea I mean.
That side has a small chapel and a view of the famous rock archway with L'Aiguille (or "the Needle" in English).
The views of the arch are stunning throughout the hike, in both directions.
There are actually three famous arches in the water along the cliffs, two of which can be viewed easily from the side we hiked that day.
Another one can be viewed if you hike the other side of town, you just have to hike past the "Needle" and keep going.
That one is also impressive because it's large and kind of reassembles an elephant. I don't have pictures from this trip so you will have to take my word on it.
The white chalk cliffs in the other direction are pretty incredible to view as well. They really stand out against the deep blue water.
You can walk along the top of the cliffs for quite some ways, the path goes on and on for a really long time. I believe that it connects to other cities and towns along the coast but I've never tried to walk that far.
This time we chose to take the path and stairs down to the water, to walk next to the cliffs along the stoney shore and beach.
Seeing the cliffs from a different perspective is pretty cool though.
There are some neat things to see down by the water as well, so it's worth checking out.
For instance we found this interesting rock formation and took some pictures by it. The wide angle lens didn't do it justice but I think the photo of my sister turned out really cool.
Something else to see down there is one of the rock archways I was talking about. There was a group of guys hanging out around the arch swimming in the water.
When we first approached I thought that it would be really neat to swim through the archway but after standing there for a bit I noticed how fast the current was moving. It was very powerful and was flowing through the arch and then out to sea.
It made me nervous just watching the guys standing on the edge working up the courage to jump in. I was actually hoping that they wouldn't because if they missed grabbing the rocks they would just be dragged out to sea well beyond reach. I was also prepared to grab my sister to stop her from jumping in to save a guy if that happened.
She is the type of person to risk her life to save someone else and in this case there was a good chance of death if the situation went that way. So I was readying myself to stop her immediately. Luckily only two people jumped in and both made it back onto the rocks okay.
After watching for a bit we walked through a man made cave that has been carved into the cliffs to create a passage to the other side.
The cave opened up onto a long stoney beach with a good mix of sun and also some shade from the cliffs. It was the best of both worlds given how hot it was outside.
Our feet sank pretty deep into the loose stones so it wasn't easy to walk along the beach, but it was still really nice because of the views of the cliffs and water. No messy sand either, so that was a plus.
It was insanely hot that day so we mostly stayed in the shade. We were going through a heat wave for the entirety of my sister's trip so it was scorching hot pretty much every day that she was in the country. Being near the water was nice though, even if neither of us actually went in.
After our hike we stopped for lunch and had one of the worst meals that I've ever experienced in France. The place was called Restaurant La Taverne des Deux Augustins and it was a super touristy looking so I'm not surprised that it was so awful. That day everyone in the place seemed to be pretty annoyed and dissapointed and the staff just seemed to be over everything. I'm sure that the heat played a big factor that day but the food itself was absolutely nasty as well. It was one of those situations where the pictures on the menu looked incredible but then the actual food came out like a dog's breakfast. I didn't even eant to eat it but I did for some reason, and we didn't say anything about it to the waiter. We just paid our bill and got the hell out of there. The lunch didn't ruin the day at all and we still left completely satisfied with the days hike. My sister said that other than Chamonix, Étretat was her favorite destination during her French vacation. It was the right spot to end the trip on a high note.