Etretat

Last weekend I finally escaped Paris by going to Etretat, a coastal town in Normandy famous for its white cliffs. When we (myself, a colleague Cécile, and her friend Florence) arrived it was raining and even chilly, a typical occurrence in Normandy, I'm told. It's difficult to capture the feeling of Etretat in a photo, but I tried. When Claude Monet went there, he tried too. In the photo, you might be able to see that there is a memorial, shaped kind of like a wing stuck into the ground, next to the church, marking the point from which a couple of early aviators could be seen in their failed attempt to cross the channel to England.The town is nestled between the cliffs, and the beach consists of pebbles rather than sand. There are trails all along the cliffs, and also a golf course. After had a dinner of mussels and fries accompanied by a sunset in Etretat, we went to a neighboring town, Yport (pronounced ee-pore), where we had a campsite. Yport was hosting some sort of Russian dancing and singing group, performing on a stage next to the beach, and they were actually pretty impressive. That was followed by fireworks set to the music of Mozart, similar to the Bastille Day fireworks in Paris.
We went hiking again the next day, which was completely sunny.