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A?tretat
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A?TRETAT
, 20km west from FA©camp towards Le Havre, is a very different kettle of fish to FA©camp. Here the alabaster cliffs are at their most spectacular - their arches, tunnels and the solitary "needle" out to sea will doubtless be familiar from tourist brochures - and the town itself has grown up simply as a pleasure resort. There isn't even a port of any kind: the seafront consists of a sweeping unbroken curve of concrete above a shingle beach.
A?tretat is a very pretty little place, centring on the place Foch just back from the sea, where the old wooden market halles still stand, the ground floor now converted into souvenir shops, but the beams of the balcony and roof bare and ancient. As soon as you step onto the beach you'll see the cliff formations to either side. To the west, on the Falaise d'Aval , a straightforward if precarious walk leads up the crumbling side of the cliff, with lush lawns and pastures to the inland side and German fortifications on the shore side extending to the point where the turf abruptly stops, occasionally ripped by the latest fall of cliff. From the windswept top you can see further rock formations and possibly even glimpse Le Havre, but the views back to the village sheltered in the valley, and the Falaise d'Amont on its eastern side - which Maupassant compared to an elephant dipping its trunk into the ocean - are what stick in the memory. The cliff itself presents an idyllic rural scene, with a gentle footpath winding up the green hillside to the little chapel of Notre-Dame.
A?tretat's
tourist office
is alongside the main road through the centre of town, on place M.-Guillard (mid-March to mid-June & mid-Sept to mid-Oct daily 10am-noon & 2-6pm; mid-June to mid-Sept daily 10am-7pm; rest of year Fri 2-6pm, Sat 10am-noon & 2-6pm, Sun 10am-noon; tel 02.35.27.05.21,
www.etretat.net
). Four
hotels
crowd onto the corners of place Foch, all significantly cheaper than the grand sea-view places. Much the most picturesque is the
HA?tel la RA©sidence
, 4 bd RenA©-Coty (tel 02.35.27.02.87; 160-400F/a?¬24-61), a dramatic half-timbered old mansion that has beautiful wooden carvings decorating its every nook and cranny - the quality of rooms however is variable, and few are as elegant as the facade. More dependable is the
HA?tel des Falaises
, opposite at 1 bd RenA©-Coty (tel 02.35.27.02.77; 160-220F/a?¬24-34) - in fact from its modernized rooms you get a better view of the
RA©sidence
than if you're actually staying there.
L'Escale
, on place Foch itself (tel 02.35.27.03.69, fax 02.35.28.05.86; 220-300F/a?¬34-46; closed Dec & Jan), has simple but pleasant rooms, and a snack restaurant downstairs specializing in
moules frites
and crA?pes.
Campers
will find the
Camping municipal
(tel 02.35.27.07.67; closed mid-Oct to March) 1km out on rue Guy-de-Maupassant. Much the best
restaurant
in town is the
Galion
, distinct from the adjoining
RA©sidence
at 4 bd RenA©-Coty (tel 02.35.29.48.74; closed Wed & mid-Dec to mid-Jan), where the 120F/a?¬18.29 menu makes a definitive introduction to all that's best in Norman cuisine. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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France,
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