Meze & Moules
Trip · 19 to 22 Jul 2026 · 40 photographs

Étretat, July 2026

Three days in Étretat, Normandy, and the best parts were the slow ones. We arrived on a Sunday evening, and lost the Belgian national day to a French cliff. The Needle beside it, 70 metres of chalk, is the one Maurice Leblanc hollowed out for Arsène Lupin in 1909.

On the map: Étretat · The post on Instagram

Two small boats drawn up on the shingle, the chalk arch behind in sunset light
The blue corner shopfront of Cafe Jade, painted figures in its upper windows, people walking past
A windsurfer with an orange sail beyond two people on a floating swim platform
Small sailboats with bright sails in the bay below the chalk arch and the Needle
A stone chapel with a slender spire on the clifftop, a bicycle leaning on a fence
A half-timbered house behind clipped hedges and a woven metal sculpture at Les Jardins d'Étretat
A giant sculpted face with closed eyes and pursed lips among hedges at Les Jardins d'Étretat
Clipped hedges coiling into a green spiral under a cloudy sky at Les Jardins d'Étretat
The chalk arch and the Needle seen over trees and wave-shaped hedges from Les Jardins d'Étretat
A slender dark statue on a plinth among bamboo at Les Jardins d'Étretat
A tall pointed white monument framing the clifftop chapel, the arch and the Needle far left
A single person at the water's edge on a pebble beach, seen from the cliff above
A white gull standing on a chalk ledge above dark blue water
A long wall of chalk cliffs above rocky ledges exposed at low tide
A layered chalk cliff with a small arch at its foot, rising from turquoise sea
The open blue doorway of a café, flanked by two small blossom trees in pots
A stone house trimmed in red brick, a gravel path leading past hydrangeas and flowering shrubs
The porch and white double door of a brick-trimmed villa, steps lined with potted plants
A brick and stone villa with a pointed central gable and dormers against a blue sky
A half-timbered house with wooden shutters and window boxes behind a white picket fence
Low evening sun on the pebble beach and promenade, people strolling toward the far cliff
Two chalk pinnacles beside the cliff path, people at a railed viewpoint above turquoise sea
A huge chalk arch reaching into deep blue water beyond a grassy cliff edge
Jagged shadows of the cliff falling across a pebble beach, two walkers far below
A chalk pinnacle in the foreground, across the bay the far cliffs topped by a chapel
A narrow chalk gully dropping to a shaded pebble beach with small groups of walkers
A massive layered chalk arch with a sliver of beach beneath, walkers on the clifftop beyond
A chalk arch under streaky cloud, a strip of beach and dark rocks at its foot
The two of us kissing on the clifftop, white chalk cliffs and an arch behind
The red painted shopfront of Le Clos Lupin, a sandwich board on the pavement
A gull perched on a lantern-style street lamp in golden evening light, another on a roof
A striped brick hotel with white balconies in golden light, a children's slide in front
Red flowers in a window box on an ochre house, two people on a bench below
The Needle and the chalk arch over turquoise sea, a shingle beach below the cliff
People walking the promenade toward the steps up the cliff, in warm evening light
The sun sinking over the sea, the arch dark at left and wet rocks glinting below
One of us in a red pleated dress on the shingle, chalk cliffs in evening light
Two seabirds in silhouette crossing the setting sun above the sea
The last of the sun on the horizon, small waves washing up a dark shingle beach
A seabird in flight above a red sun touching the horizon, another skimming the waves