To think that these beautiful falaises/cliffs were an hour and a half from my house really made me evaluate just exactly how I have been spending my time this past year. I think my mouth was in a constant excited smile and my chin was on the floor and my eyes were as big as saucers and full of happy tears. This little coastal village was heaven. Even Emily took a moment to thank me for my inspired decision to come last minute because it is what her soul needed: the beach.
We took an early train from Saint Lazare (where I fulfilled my dream of playing my very short piano song in a Paris train station) and got off in the teeny little farm village of Breaute and waited for the bus to Etretat. With an hour to kill, we walked down little farm streets where I fell in love with a Normandy donkey and we took pictures of some Camembert-making cows.
The rocky beach was made up of fat round stones that were chalk white and looked like little cadburry eggs. The English Channel was bluer than blue and clear and serene. The cliffs were ginormous and covered in grass and white rock and jutted out into the sea in perfect shapes. For example......THE ELEPHANT ROCK!
When my eyes set sight on the elephant, I think that was the moment I truly knew that I was in love with, yet another, city. We climbed along the edges of all the cliffs and took a million photos that all turned out amazing and enjoyed every second of it. I didn't want to leave!
Some fancy descriptions of the actual cliff hahaha-
The Amont’s cliff is situated on the other side of the beach and, less than a century ago, was called la Falaise du Blanc-Trait, because of the whiteness of the chalk which is visible far away in the open sea.
How not to honour the acute sense of observation of Maupassant who in his novel "Une vie" compares the arc of Aval to an elephant dipping its trunk into the sea? Everything is there: the trunk, the head and its ears, the fore limbs and hind limbs and you can even found on its back the palanquin of a Maharadjah !
It was like Tours all over again. Basically we exhausted all of our resources and ideas when there were no Ubers available, no taxis, no possibility of walking the 5 hours....so I suggested hitch hiking. I was feeling awfully brave (desperate) and had the utmost confidence in my French (or at least enough to get us to Le Havre).
We walked up the road until it split into the main direction of Le Havre and, as embarrassed and ashamed as I felt with my thumb sticking out, believe it or not, it paid off! But not before we got a lot of strange stairs and thumbs-ups from other people.
A nice guy pulled over and I said we were going to Le Havre and then as soon as Zabrina and Emily started talking in the back, he asked if we were English....in English! Yes, he actually spoke English really well which was awesome. He was out there golfing all day and has had some experience hitch hiking when he was younger so he took pity on us three girls. He even dropped us off at the beach in Le Havre since we had time to kill and told us how to get to the station. Man oh man, we were blessed BIG TIME. I am still so thankful that we were able to get to our bus on time, we did not have to spend more money, and we weren't picked up by a creep. So here's my shoutout to the universe: Merci infiniment, Elliotte!!
We made it to Le Havre, danced and laid on the beach, stopped by a grocery store for some food, took the tram to the bus, slept on the bus, then arrived in La Defense at 9:30 pm and went home. So tired but so happy. My host family was even having a huge summer party in the backyard when we arrived. I was not about to join in on that.
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