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Ètretat on the
Normandy Coast
Ètretat may not have
a natural river-mouth harbor — as do Dieppe,
Le Havre and Le
Tréport — but it does have some
fascinating rock
formations.
Writing in Un
Vie, Guy de
Maupassant described La Porte
d’Aval as “... a rock of curious shape,
rounded,
with gaps in it looking something like an immense elephant with its
trunk in the
water; it was the little port of Ètretat.”
Having
no harbor or pier, Ètretat today is a port for beachable
boats only. The
elephant description was fitting, though, for the famous rock
formations which also are seen in paintings by Monet.
Another of Ètretat’s
outstanding
features is
manmade: the Hôtel La Résidence.
Built in the 14th
century, its ancient facade has been preserved while the rooms have
been brought up to date with modern plumbing, and other amenities. For
golfers Ètretat
is quite special in that it has an 18-hole par-72 course with a seaside
location that rivals Pebble Beach at Carmel, California.
We arrived at Ètretat
around lunchtime and decided to try one of the restaurants near the
pebble beach pictured
below. The food was not the sort that gave France its reputation for
gastronomy but the
service was definitely the sort which gave French waiters their
reputation for courtesy toward foreign guests. That's the luck of the
draw and next time the experience may
be different. The choice of eatery will certainly be different. By
contrast, we can heartily recommend the restaurants along the quay
in Dieppe.
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Ètretat
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A boy throws stones into the bay at Ètretat, elephant-shaped rock in
background.