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.

Sunset at Fécamp

K.J. drives us up the cliffside in Fécamp to watch the sunset one night, scheduled for 10:09 p.m. according to our phones.  We pass a chapel, Église Notre-Dame-du-Salut.  It seems like every church we visit on this trip is a tribute to "our lady" Mary.  We park across the street from graceful windmills I spotted earlier in the day behind the hill.  Cows are grazing beneath them, and the light is so perfect, my photography-loving heart is jumpy with excitement.

There's a viewing spot for looking out over Fécamp down the street from the car park.  I especially love the tower on St. Stephen's church in the town.  If a church must be called after a saint, Stephen is a good choice; I don't think I've ever seen a St. Stephen's before.

We walk along a grassy path and find a good spot for K.J. to set up a time-lapse video.  The English Channel stretches out silvery blue before us, and the white cliffs on our right extend as far as our eyes can see.  The breeze moves the grass gently, and the seagulls are calling.

K.J. preached Psalm 19 just the day before this, and he told us how if you could scoop up a bucketful of the sun, that one bucketful would weigh more than the earth and everything on it.  I love getting to see a glimpse of our big star on this clear night.  I look at my watch when it disappears below the horizon, and it is 10:10 p.m. 

We walk back to our car under a violet sky, and I stop to take a picture of the cows under the windmill because I know my mom would like it.

Plage de Fécamp

If you had told me in March that I would spend 52 days within the confines of the walled garden around our cottage and Noreen's house I couldn't have imagined what that would feel like.  If I had spent some time imagining, I would have thought not leaving home for 8 weeks would feel harder that it did.  But it was the last few weeks of homeschooling, and I had a lot of work to do, and I found a lot of joy in Noreen's beautiful garden, watching all the spring blossoms appear and wither with new ones constantly taking their place.  I loved watching the robins build their nest and hop around the ground so close to me with a fearless joie de vivre.  But even with all these joys I was really happy for a change of scenery last week.  

Our first views of Fécamp on Normandy's upper coast were filled with the vivid colors of sea, sky, houses, and boats.  It was also a very blustery day as Winnie-the-Pooh would say.  The wind made it feel chilly, but of course the kids still wanted to get their feet wet.

Maybe it was just the strong winds that day, but the waves were so much bigger than the softly lapping waves of Alabama's Gulf Coast.  Waves taller than James were crashing into the shore, pulling hundreds of rocks with them as the water flowed back out to the sea.  Between the wind, the waves, and the clattering of rolling rocks it was hard to hear anything else.

 This view is my favorite.

In the opposite direction of the lighthouse white cliffs tower over the rocky beach.  Throwing rocks in the ocean was J's favorite beach occupation.

K.J. filmed some waves crashing into the shore but had to make a run for it at one point.

It was a great start to our trip.