Weekend in Normandy

I was debating what to do for the last weekend I was in Europe for this trip and with all of the politics at work I just wanted to be adventurous and get away.  I looked at flights to Rome, Copenhagen, Dublin, Stockholm, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, etc and of course they were all too expensive since I was looking the day before the weekend.  I wanted to go to Mount St-Michel in Normandy but decided not to because the tide was not high this weekend and part of the mountain gets submerged when its high tide so I decided to save that for warmer weather.  I decided to go to the east side of Normandy and stay Saturday night in Le Havre which is a neat small French town along the coast.  It was pretty dead but I can imagine there would be quite a few people up there in warmer weather; however I am glad I went as there were a couple really neat things. 

The real reason I was going to France this weekend was to go to the small village town of Etretat, right on the coast and on a clear day it is said that you can see the southern part of England.  The weather was supposed to be nice on Sunday so I was looking forward to waking up early in Le Havre and getting on the road for the 30 minute drive to Etretat.  Talk about back country, winding roads and small village towns the whole way but very neat in a way.  Why Etretat you ask?  I wanted to see / climb the white-chalk cliffs of Etretat and I am so glad I went as this was by far the coolest thing I have seen in Europe so far – at least best natural site I have seen.  The cliffs are huge and there are 140 KM of them.  However, the best and most famous ones are just off of the rock beach of Etretat; yes, I said rock beach – so neat and the waves crashing on a beach of rocks and receding back into the water was a sound unlike I have ever heard.  After walking (not easy at all) to the one end of the rock beach, I noticed there was a cave that had stone stairs and a ladder up to it.  However, I decided not to go inside as there was no one down at this end of the beach and I was somewhat nervous that a French pirate would be living in there so I avoided it and decided it was time to grab a quick lunch before I started scaling the cliffs.  I ended up climbing 3-4 of the cliffs and I walked a good 3-4 KM the one way where they HAVE A GOLF COURSE right on top of the cliff, which a couple of the holes overlooking the water.  I already have a weekend planned in the spring to leave work at a decent time on Friday afternoon, head straight to Etretat, try to get 9 holes in, wake up early for 36 holes, and wake up early on Sunday for 18 more holes.  Meanwhile, when I am not playing golf I will be climbing the cliffs because they are seriously so amazing!  Anyone want to join – I need three more in my foursome :-).  I will save the rest to the pictures, although I don’t know how I am going to choose as I took almost 500 pictures in Etretat alone – seriously, so cool. 

So cool! Hard to pick just 4....