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I still went to bed early and had a cold night that ended way before sunrise. So I reached Etretat in the very first glimpses of daylight and drove the narrow road up to the chapel on the cliff in absolute solitude. I planned to have breakfast at the parking up there and savour the great overview on the coast and town with a good warm coffee but the parking was barred for vehicles higher then 1,90 meters.
So I just could stop for a quick view at the last turn of the narrow and steep road. It was enough to verify that the wind had the right direction – south – but because of the high tide the west swell, that made me come here, only caused some crazy shore break. Too early for the planned surf session. At least I thought so because I did not know the exact location of the reef, nor the exact tide and swell conditions for the left that I was looking for. But all in all it looked like I would have to wait a couple more hours.
On the way back down to town I stopped at a cemetery and went for a quick look. A lonely cat was strolling through the graves which had the typical mix of small and large, old and new tombstones. But amongst this chaotic variety extremely regular rows of identic stones stood out. Army tombstones. From world war one aka “The Great War”. Even here, a few hundred kilometres away from the frontlines. Probably a few hundred well looked after graves giving testimony about the way to early death of way too young men. Better: giving testimony about the slaughtering of large parts of a generation. And these graves were mostly officers´ graves. The ordinary private usually didn´t get his own grave but was buried together with his mates in mass graves or bone houses.
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