Still Discovering Normandy

Etretat - the beauty of nature 

After Giverny the bus tour continued to Etretat, an amazing place in the Normandy. It' s a small village next to the sea, with small shops, cafés and a lot of tourists. Why? Because of the famous rock formation right next to the beach of Etretat. 

We arrived, bought some sandwiches for lunch and decided to go right to the beach in order to see the rocks. As always, our time was limited, this time to only three hours, and we wanted to see as much as possible. So we went to the beach, were impressed by the amazing view, and had a decision to make - on the right there was a chapel at the hill and one of the rocks, on the left there were two other rocks (the more famous ones). In 2 hours we could only do one of the two things, so we went to the left and planned to have picnic at the rock. It was exhausting to walk up the hill, because we all were tired and it was so windy! But after 15 minutes we arrived on top of the rocks and it was just amazing. We took some pictures and decided to have lunch then, because we were quite hungry. Even if the sandwiches we had bought weren't the best ones in the world, with that stunning view everything tasted great. 

We did some more pictures after lunch and finally we had to get down again, because time was running and we wanted to enjoy some time at the beach, too. Even if it was cold, the sea always has something very nice and fascinating. So we went down and it was already quite late, so we didn't have so much time at the beach and had to hurry up in order to get to the bus on time. 

We arrived there 2 minutes before departure and of course, all the others arrived late, too. So we had to wait 20 more minutes for another couple before we could go on to the last stop for that day, Caen, where also our hotel would be. I was already so tired that I could sleep in the bus for the first time and woke up when the guide told us that we arrived in Caen. But actually, we hadn't arrived yet, because the bus driver and the guide didn't know where the hotel was and we were driving around a commercial area. Again, and again. It was already dark and we were tired and I just wanted to arrive at the hotel and sleep. 

Night in Caen 

After 30 minutes search finally we arrived at the hotel and got our keys for the rooms. I took a shower and we met again to look for something to eat because there was no dinner at the hotel. But after some minutes of walking around, we recognized that we were in the middle of nowhere - there were just houses and the commercial centre some minutes by car away. We found a bus station but the next bus into the city centre would be in one hour and there was no bus to the commercial centre anymore. So we decided to walk because we were all hungry. It was obvious that it was not meant to walk there by foot, there was no sidewalk, just the highway. But we didn't care and after 20 minutes we entered a Chinese all-you-can-eat restaurant. 

After having eaten we returned to the hotel (hoping that we would find it and that there was nobody who wanted to kill us in those dark forests around). I slept immediately when I touched my bed, I was so tired! But the next day we had to get up at 7 to have breakfast, because departure was at 8am. So it was a quite short night but I slept very good. 

Photo gallery