A Weekend in Normandy

Two weekends ago, we traveled by train and bus to the Upper Normandy coast, known for its falaises (cliffs). We started out in Fécamp, a resort town in an inlet with a small harbor and rocky beach. On the western side of town, we hiked up a campground and began our backpacking along the steep white cliffs. Here we were a bit inland, walking through cornfields and past grazing cows, with only a distant view of the sea blending into the gray-blue sky, only the occasional tiny white triangles of sailboats marking the extent of the horizon. It was a sunny early autumn day, and small red-orange poppies dotted the grass between the gravel road and the browning cornstalks. Happy cows on small farms watched us pass close by, just on the other side of the barbwire fence.

After about three miles we descended into Yport, a smaller town constrained by a smaller inlet than that of Fécamp. The houses were built in a pattern of red brick and gray stone, and the small yards were filled with the fading colors of recently deep pink hydrangea. We discovered that the town's boulanger (baker) was away on his annual vacation, so the neighboring boucherie (butcher shop) had become the temporary "depot de pain." That afternoon we stocked up camping provisions, including a pre-packaged Alsatian choucroute and a bottle of regional cider.

Our campground was in the same position as the one we walked though in the last town, on the western edge of town and most of the way up the steep hillside. With only a few other fellow campers braving the cool nights in late September, the normally communal style of French campgrounds was made a little more private. We pitched our tent in a clearing overlooking the town, the beach and the sea. The campground office was located in an old farmhouse-turned-inn, which apparently also functioned as a cocktail bar for local weddings. (That's right, just a hundred yards away from us in our hiking boots cooking on our camp stove, a wedding party took pictures and drank champagne under a small tent. It certainly wasn't fancy but the view was spectacular.) The evening was cool and a bit misty, but upon waking late that night I was rewarded with something you just can't find in Paris -- a star-filled sky and the soft sound of the sea below us.

The next morning we descended to town to pick up a baguette from the butcher shop, and back at camp, while Rob made breakfast, I observed the dozen or so perfect webs the spiders had spun in the adjacent field that night. The day was just as promising as the day before -- bright blue sky and just a hint of an autumn breeze.

Today was a longer hike, about six miles from Yport to Etretat. It started with such similarity to Saturday's hike that I have a hard time distinguishing the two, but then the trail left the farm roads and turned north to the cliffs. We followed the white cliffs westward, just a few steps and a line of blackberry bushes from the edge. Church steeples in tiny villages peeked over the trees on the other side of the cow pastures, which extended right up to the trail on the edge of the cliff. At one point we descended steeply into a ravine which opened out onto a rocky, seaweed-strewn beach, but otherwise the cliffs in this part of the coast were uniformly quite high. A friendly mountain biker warned us (in a Normandy accent I found very difficult to understand) of dangerously eroded trail west of Etretat, making me wonder what the coastline looked like a hundred years ago, and how it will appear a hundred years from now.

We knew we were nearing our destination as we began passing more and more nicely-dressed people out for a Sunday walk. The draw around Etretat is a couple of curious rock formations protruding out into the sea, including l'Aiguille (the Needle) and the arch of the Falaise d'Aval.

At the end of our trail, we descended the crowded steps onto Etretat's steep and pebbly beach, where the clear, cool water looked very inviting. The ebbing of small waves through the smooth, gray stones made a gentle clacking sound, pleasant to hear but painful to walk on barefoot! We spent the afternoon swimming (Rob), napping (me) and enjoying a take-out kebab lunch before catching the bus to Le Havre, then the train back to Paris.

Au revoir, l'été!