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.

The Cliffs of Étretat

While on our little beach trip to the Normandy coast earlier this month we spent an afternoon at Étretat.  K.J. and I stopped here briefly on our first trip to France in 2013.  That little picture stop took place one extremely windy and cold May evening.  I was expecting for it to be similarly windy this time around, but there was not very much wind at all, and the kids even got a little sunburned.

When K.J. and I first visited in 2013 we drove the car up the road and parked, but parking wasn't allowed at the top on this visit.  We walked half a mile uphill to enjoy the stunning view.

I'm glad it wasn't a super-windy day, because Noreen told me before we left about people in the past who had been blown off the side of the cliffs.  😲 I gave J some serious commands to stay near me on the path and not to get anywhere near the edge.  There are lots of places where there aren't any barriers, so I would not recommend visiting with young kids.  It could be very dangerous.

We spotted a big carrier ship in the distance crossing the channel.

It was an absolutely perfect day for walking along the cliffs.  I was surprised to find cows, corn, and barley fields along the top.  I could re-write the lyrics of My Favorite Things with all there was to enjoy during this walk:  a perfectly clear blue sky, ripened barley fields with poppies growing in their midst, and coastline stretched out as far as the eye can see.  These are a few of my favorite things.

I watched two seagulls flying in tandem for a while.

Here's those poppies I was talking about.