Étretat
The chalk arches Monet kept coming back to for years
- When to go
- October 14° · 18 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€price 4 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 38 km Deauville · 76 km Caen
- Right now
Étretat is a small town on the Normandy coast with two chalk arches and a needle of rock standing alone in the sea. The cliffs are white, the water grey-green, and the shape of the coast so unusual that Monet and Courbet both painted it more than once.
The cliffs are walked on foot and cost nothing — paths climb from both ends of the beach. On one side is the Porte d'Aval with its needle, on the other the Porte d'Amont with a chapel on top. For the third and largest arch, the Manneporte, you either walk down to the beach at low tide or look at it from the path above. Without a car, take the train from Gare Saint-Lazare to Bréauté-Beuzeville, then the bus into town — just under three hours from Paris in total.
The only thing you really pay for is the Étretat Gardens on the cliff edge, with sculptures and a view of the arches — the ticket is €12, a little less out of season and a little more at the height of summer. Everything else is free. And one thing that matters: check the tide table before walking under the cliffs, because at high tide there's no way off that part of the beach.
What to see in Étretat
Porte d'Aval and the needle
The best-known arch, with a tall rock needle standing beside it. Visible from the beach, but the real shot is from the clifftop path.
The Manneporte
The largest of the three arches, a little further from town. Reached by the clifftop path or along the beach at low tide — never at high tide.
Porte d'Amont and the chapel
The arch at the other end of the beach, with a sailors' chapel on top and a monument to the aviators last seen from here in 1927.
The Étretat Gardens
Landscaped gardens with contemporary sculpture right on the cliff edge — the only place in town charging entry, €12.
The shingle beach
No sand at all, just large white pebbles. Swimming is for the brave.
Two things you probably did not know
Monet painted the chalk arches at Etretat more than fifty times, in every weather and at every hour. He worked on several canvases at once and swapped them as the light changed.
The cliffs are chalk formed from the skeletons of sea organisms eighty million years ago. The sea takes about twenty centimetres a year, so the coastline visibly changes within a single lifetime.
Ready for Étretat?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Étretat — day trips or weekends.
France
→From Paris the TGV reaches Lyon, Bordeaux and Strasbourg in about two hours — France is chosen by direction, not by city
Italy
→The cities on the high-speed line are an hour or two apart; the coast, Matera and the Tuscan hills lie off it
Spain
→A country where dinner is at ten and the city wakes up as everywhere else turns the lights off
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Brighton, Mont Saint-Michel and Paris
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Étretat if you have been.
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