Hiking Along the Shoreline to Étretat, France - Beautiful Cliffs

Last Monday we went for a 10 km hike along the shoreline to the city of Étretat, which is famous for its chalk cliffs and arches in those cliffs. It was around 30 degrees Celsius (86°F) and the terrain was very mountainous, so it turned out to be a pretty tiring endeavour. Below you'll see a picture of one of the famous arches.

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By @daan

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Before we reached the shoreline, we had to walk around 2 km from our car to the coast, which was pretty easy and relaxed, since at that point everything was still pretty flat. We walked by a few farms and saw these typical French fields with hay rolled up into round bales.

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By @daan

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Then we finally reached the shore and saw remnants of an old bunker which was probably part of the Atlantic Wall, built by German forces during the Second World War. Also came across an old lighthouse which now served as a cell tower, got a really neat shot of that. I have to mention that this was the first time I've really tested out my new Canon EOS 200D, some pictures came out really nice, while others... not so much.

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By @daan

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Now the real struggle began, still around 8 more kilometres to go, over rough terrain in scorching heath. There were thistles everywhere, so we needed to be careful where we walked. Came across another small bunker, which I didn't enter since it looked like it was about to collapse.

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By @daan

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In the next couple of pictures you'll see a little path on the side of those hills, I think we went up and down at least 4 times in total (over different cliffs that looked pretty much the same). I was wearing the wrong shoes and my feet were full of blisters after this trip. Still worth it, because the scenery was just breathtaking and I got to practice taking pictures with different settings.

At a certain point we had to go through a barbed wired entrance, you'll see it in one of the photos. After which we went down the hill.

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By @daan

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Now we had reached an area that featured a long stairway going down to a little cove, surrounded by these massive cliffs. I was glad we had about 2 litres of water with us, because it was so hot down there.

Since the cliffs were all white, all the light and heath reflected onto us! I was wearing sunglasses, but my girlfriend wasn't, so she could barely see. I offered her mine, but she declined due to them being 'unfashionable'.

We had a little bit of rest, not too much because it was way too hot.

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By @daan

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Now we were finally getting close to the city of Étretat, I also took a few more shots of the path we had just walked on. The cliffs we saw from that point on all had arches carved out by the sea, this is why we made the trip in the first place.

When we finally saw the city in the distance, we let out a sigh of relief. Finally we could get some nice cold drinks, since the water we had with us was all gone.

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By @daan

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If you ever plan on visiting France, I can definitely recommend visiting this area, it's just stunning. Maybe you want to hike on a day that is less hot, because we kind of miscalculated that.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post, looking forward to reading your comments!

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