Étretat, Honfleur and the painters’ coast

Long before the photographers and the postcards, painters came to this coast for its light. Boudin, Courbet and Monet worked here, and the white cliffs of Étretat appear in dozens of their canvases. A day along the Alabaster Coast and the Seine estuary is the gentlest of Normandy’s day trips: no history to study, simply cliffs, sea, harbours and very good food.

From Caen, Étretat is about an hour and forty minutes by road, crossing the Seine on the soaring Pont de Normandie. Honfleur sits at the southern end of the bridge, which makes it the perfect place to end the day.

Étretat and its cliffs

Étretat is a small seaside town on a shingle beach, framed by two great chalk cliffs. To the west, the Falaise d’Aval forms a natural arch over the sea, with the slender rock known as the Needle standing just beyond it. To the east, the Falaise d’Amont is topped by a small seafarers’ chapel.

The best way to see the cliffs is from above. Footpaths climb both sides of the beach, and the walk to the top of the Falaise d’Aval takes around twenty minutes, with the arch and the Needle opening up below you. The paths are well trodden but can be steep and slippery after rain, and the cliff edges are unprotected: stay well back, and keep children close.

Fécamp, if you have time

Twenty minutes further along the coast, Fécamp is a working fishing port with an unexpected landmark: the Palais Bénédictine, a fantastical late nineteenth-century palace built to produce the herbal liqueur of the same name. It is worth a visit for the building alone. The cliffs around Fécamp are among the highest on the coast, and the views from the chapel above the harbour are superb.

Lunch by the sea

This is a coast of seafood. Moules-frites, oysters, scallops in season and fish straight from the morning’s catch are on every menu, and a simple lunch facing the sea is part of the day. I am happy to suggest a place that suits your taste and your budget.

Honfleur

In the late afternoon we cross back over the Pont de Normandie to Honfleur, one of the most beautiful harbour towns in France. Tall, narrow houses, slate and timber, line the Vieux Bassin, the old harbour, and their reflections in the water are exactly what drew the painters here.

A few minutes’ walk away, the church of Sainte-Catherine is a rare sight: a large church built almost entirely of wood, by the town’s shipwrights, with a separate bell tower across the square. The Eugène Boudin museum, named after the Honfleur painter who taught the young Monet, holds a lovely collection of paintings of this coast.

Stay for an early dinner if you like. The harbour is at its best in the evening light.

A few things I have learned

• Wear real shoes. The cliff paths and the shingle beach are hard on sandals.
• Watch the weather, not the forecast. Coastal weather changes quickly here, and a grey morning often becomes a bright afternoon.
• Add Giverny on another day. Monet’s house and gardens are in the opposite direction, and deserve a day of their own, often combined with Rouen.
• Make it a transfer. If you are travelling between Paris and Normandy, this coast makes a beautiful detour on the way.

Send me your dates and I will suggest the best order for your day.