Étretat Cliffs and Gardens

The Étretat cliffs are white chalk walls on the Alabaster Coast in Seine-Maritime, with natural arches and a lone rock needle standing in the sea beside the village of Étretat (often typed as Etretat). The cliffs rise to nearly 90 meters, and Boudin and Monet were among the painters who worked here. You can walk the clifftops for free. Above the village, the ticketed Jardins d’Étretat add a contemporary garden with a view of the needle.

What you will see

Stand on the pebble beach facing the sea and the layout makes sense at once. The Porte d’Aval arch is on your left, the Falaise d’Amont is on your right, and the village sits between them.

The Falaise d’Aval and the needle

The Porte d’Aval is the arch on your left as you face the sea. Beside it stands the Aiguille, a rock needle 51 meters high. Farther along is the Manneporte, a larger arch.

The Falaise d’Amont and the gardens

On the other side of the village, a cliff path climbs east to the Amont plateau. The Jardins d’Étretat are at the top. Landscape architect Alexandre Grivko of IL NATURE designed them as a contemporary garden that mixes topiary, architecture and contemporary art, with the needle across the bay as a backdrop. The garden holds France’s “Remarkable Garden” label and has won a European Garden Award. There are toilets, a café-tea room and a shop on site.

Along the GR21

The GR21 long-distance footpath runs along these clifftops from Le Havre to Le Tréport. You can follow it for a short stretch in either direction from the village to see the coast unfold. The wider Alabaster Coast runs between the Seine and Somme estuaries. The local tourist office puts its length at about 140 km, and Normandy Tourism gives 130 km.

In the village

Back in Étretat, the church of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption is free to visit. The town page for Étretat covers the village itself.

Planning your visit

When to go

The cliffs are open land, so you can walk them year-round. Normandy Tourism advises avoiding July and August, fine-weather weekends and school holidays. It names the hours between around 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. as the busiest and suggests early morning or late evening for a quieter visit. For month-by-month conditions, see Normandy weather by month.

The gardens are seasonal. The departmental tourism board lists them as open from August 24 to November 1, 2026 and marks those dates as unconfirmed. Check the Visit facts box above and the gardens’ own site before you build a day around them.

Time and booking

No fixed visit length is published. Plan the day around how much clifftop walking you want to do, and add time for the climb to the gardens if they are open. Ticket prices are in the Visit facts box above.

If you would rather walk with a guide, local guided nature walks along the cliffs take groups of 2 to 10 people over 2 to 3 km. Check the operator for prices and dates.

Safety rules on the cliffs

The cliffs erode, and rockfalls happen regularly. A municipal by-law sets these rules:

• Do not walk at the foot of the cliffs.
• Stay out of the caves and tunnels, including the Trou à l’Homme.
• On the Amont and Aval plateaus, keep at least 5 meters back from the edge.
• Do not take pebbles from the beach.

Breaking the rules can bring a fine, and the fire service can charge you for a rescue. The official cliffs page from the local tourist office sets out the rules in full.

Access and pets

You reach both plateaus by climbing cliff paths from the village, so allow for slopes and steps. If you have mobility concerns, contact the gardens before you go to ask about access. Pets are not allowed in the gardens.

The Explore Normandy Pass

The Jardins d’Étretat are not on the partner list of the Explore Normandy Pass, the official pass of Normandie Tourisme, the regional tourism board. My Normandy Pass is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with Normandie Tourisme or the official Explore Normandy Pass. To total entry prices across your own list of sites, try the Normandy pass calculator.

Getting there

By train and coach

From Paris Saint-Lazare, SNCF sells combined train and coach tickets to Étretat from April to early November. Out of season, take the train to Le Havre or Fécamp and continue on the NOMAD coach. Direct coaches also run from Paris. The departmental tourism board names bus line 13 for the gardens. For more car-free routes, see Normandy without a car.

By car

Parking in the village is hard to find. There is free parking at the village entrance on the route de Criquetot-l’Esneval (la Guezane), and a footpath leads from there into the village.

If you are driving from Paris, note that the A13 Saint-Cloud tunnel near Paris is closed in the Paris-to-Normandy direction from November 16, 2026 to the end of August 2027, with signed diversions. Getting to Normandy from Paris covers the options.

From the Le Havre cruise terminal

The Le Havre cruise terminal is about 41 minutes and 32 km away by road. This figure, like the other driving times on this page, comes from OpenStreetMap routing and is an estimate without traffic. The Le Havre cruise port day itinerary shows how Étretat fits into a day ashore.

Nearby

• Honfleur is about 48 minutes and 46 km away. Its old harbor makes a gentle second stop after a morning of clifftop walking.
• Deauville and Trouville are about 64 minutes and 63 km away. Pair them with Étretat to see two different sides of the Normandy coast in one day.
• Rouen Cathedral is about 75 minutes and 91 km away. Monet painted the cathedral as well as these cliffs, so the two stops fit together on an art-themed trip.

For more green spaces to add to your route, see gardens in Normandy.