Description:

Introduction

Etretat is best known for its chalk cliff formations, including its three famous natural arches. There are three arches, two: Porte d'Aval, and Porte d'Amont which can be seen from the town and Manneporte.

It was these cliffs and the beach below that attracted artists such as Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet. The area also featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel 'The Hollow Needle' by author Maurice Leblanc.

Apart from the wonderful beach and the dramatic cliffs, visitors to Etratat can also visit Maurice Leblanc's house.

Author Guy de Maupassant spent most of his childhood in Etratat and it is here that he wrote 'The Englishman of Étretat' after helping to save the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne from drowning. 'La Guillette' in rue Guy de Maupassant was built by de Maupassant in 1883. Jean-Baptiste Faure, the great French operatic baritone and friend of Edouard Monet, also lived in the town.

More recently, Etretat is known as the last place where the biplane, the White Bird, was seen when it attempted to make the first non-stop flight from Paris to New York in 1927. Its disappearance is still considered to be one of the great unexplained mysteries of aviation. The town has a monument to the flight.