Friday, July 16, 2004

We had breakfast buffet in the hotel, and got away early east to see whether "our" little Hotel de la Falaise in Étretat was booked solid. Our luck had turned again: arriving before 11 we found they could offer a room on the third floor, and that it was available immediately. The town was even more lively and charming than we expected or remembered. Finally, the weather, though starting with heavy grey cloud-cover and dense fog to give us the proper atmospherics for appreciating the Norman coast, gradually cleared to full bright sunshine for the rest of the day. We walked the beach, climbed the 343 steps to the cliff-top chapel on the north end of town, devoured an excellent wood-fire grilled lunch a few blocks away from the beach, took over 100 pictures, napped, spent more time on the beach, then finally had an excellent Vietnamese dinner in the same restaurant that we'd loved last trip. The owners brought out their guestbook after we told them about our former visit, and we found the entry I'd written in March, 2003, at the height of the invasion of Iraq. It was the last "care-free" day of the trip, and it could scarcely have been better.

We now believe that the area above Souillac in southern Dordogne, and this little string of coastal towns between Le Havre and Fécamp in Normandy are the most beautiful in France.

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