The Liberation of Étretat

After walking on the top of the cliffs the four of us walked down what seemed at least 100 stone steps to the beach.  The air was so still and warm it was a perfect day for sunbathing, and there were a lot of people doing that very thing on the rocky beach.  We started off walking through the town in search of an American flag I'd seen from the cliff-top.  I always get curious when I see the flag of my homeland blowing in the wind and wonder what place it's marking in a foreign land.  

 Wouldn't you love a tower room?

I saw a church built of similar stone on England's

southern coast.  It's so pretty.

We walked through narrow streets, passing a boulangerie closed for les vacances, and we stopped to purchase a couple of bookmarks with painted beach scenes on them, as well as a somewhat random thing we collect in France--plastic place-mats depicting well-known Impressionist paintings.  We enjoy eating off of great art.  K.J. added one of Claude Monet's paintings of the cliffs to our collection.  We walked a little further down the street and found ourselves in a town square where a man strummed softly on a guitar, and we found the flags we were looking for.

I'm always so moved reading these plaques, especially when I come upon them accidentally in small towns like this.  They're an unexpected reminder of a history that seemed very long ago and far away until living in England and France.  Reading this inscription made me think about how many tough decisions were made, how many hard conversations arguing pros and cons of getting involved must have taken place before the events of September 2, 1944.  This is three months after D-Day.  I wonder how much news the people living here were able to receive during that time.  I'm sure they were anxiously awaiting their own liberation.  What was it like the day the men of the 51st Highland Division and General Eisenhower's armies arrived?  What a wonderful, sacrificial thing to be a liberator, how wonderful to be liberated.