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            A section of the art installation "Drops of Rain" in the Garden of Emotions (in French: "Jardin Émotions"), a section of the Étretat Gardens (n French: "Les Jardins D'Étretat"), Étretat, Normandy, France

Some background information:

The Étretat Gardens is a cliff-top experimental garden with "living sculptures". It is located in the seaside town of Étretat by the English Channel in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. With its almost 1,300 residents the commune is nestled in the bold cliffs of the coastal area Côte d'Albâtre (in English: "Alabaster Coast"), which is forming almost the entire coastline of the Seine-Maritime department.

The Étretat Gardens surround a villa that once belonged to Madame Thébault, an actress from Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. More than a century later, the garden was restored by a team led by the Russian landscape architect Alexander Grivko of the British garden design and landscaping company IL Nature. He was inspired by the flora of the Normandy coast. In 2017, the Étretat Gardens were reopened to the public.

For his work Grivko was awarded the 2019/2020 European Garden Award in the category "Best restoration or development of a historic park or garden". The Étretat Gardens are listed among "Great Gardens of the World" and have also received a star from the Michelin Green Guide.

After Madame Thébault had become the owner of both the Belle Époque villa built on the Amont Cliff and the surrounding gardens in 1905, she called upon the local landscape designer Auguste Lecanu to develop the land. Some of the then-planted trees are now over a hundred years old and well preserved.

Thébault was a  friend of the famous French painter Claude Monet, who regularly came to the gardens to paint. Inspired by the Étretat cliffs, Monet created his painting series" Les Falaises à Étretat", whilst inspiring Thébault to create an avant-garde garden at the clifftop. 

The majority of the garden's historical elements were recreated during the restoration, which started in 2015. Alexander Grivko implemented methods borrowed from André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener of the Gardens of Versailles. It took Grivko and his team 24 months to acquire the land, negotiate with the town hall to purchase an additional 3,000 square metres (32,000 square feet), build hundreds of meters of low walls, import nearly 1,000 tonnes of earth, trace 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) of gravel paths, and plant 100,000 feet of evergreens.

Today, the Étretat Gardens are separated into seven merging gardens with different themes and art installations of different artists: Jardin Avatar (the closest to the entrance, with interactive melody installations), Jardin Émotions (with faces depicting human emotions, some of which are shown in this picture), Jardin Impressions (with an open panorama of the English Channel and the cliffs), Jardin d'Aval (inspired by "Alice in Wonderland"), Jardin Zen (with bamboo and terracotta sculptures), Jardin La Manche (with trimmed plants resembling the waves below) and Jardin d'Amont (with plants morphing into cliffs and merging with the shoreline).

The seaside town of Étretat is best known for its chalk cliffs, including three natural arches and a pointed formation called "L’Aiguille", which rises 70 metres (230 feet) above the sea. The Etretat Chalk Complex consists of a complex stratigraphy of Turonian and Coniacian chalks. Some of the cliffs are as high as 90 metres (300 feet). These cliffs and the associated beaches attracted artists including Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet. They were also featured prominently in the 1909 Arsène Lupin novel "The Hollow Needle" by Maurice Leblanc and in the 2014 film "Lucy", directed by Luc Besson. 

Two of the three famous arches, the Porte d'Aval, and the Porte d'Amont, are visible from the town. The Manneporte, the third and biggest one, cannot be seen from the town. However, it can be seen from the clifftop near Porte d'Aval. Also visible from this clifftop is the lighthouse Phare d’Antifer, standing 38 metres high, which was taken into operation in 1894.

Taken in: France / Normandy / Arrondissement du Havre / Étretat (show map)

Taken on: August 31, 2020

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Sets appears in: • France: Champagne, Haute-Normandie and Metz 2020 • Summer

Groups appears in: • France • France image more » • Normandy, Normandie • European Vacation • Regions of France / La France des Régions • * Images de France * (France-Corse-DOM-TOM-COM) • Gardens To See (NO FLOWER CLOSEUPS, PLEASE!) • Strictly GeoTagged (no 30/60 limit) • Visual concept ( Post 1 MUST comment 2) • Normandy Landscapes • The concept is Europe • Flickr Normandie • * Perspectiva Central * (post 1 / comment 2) • art for non-snobs • Best Nature Shot Of The Day • Art Geeks « less

Camera: Canon EOS 77D, f/6.3, 1/160 sec, 71mm, ISO 400 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 77D
Lens:	TAMRON 18-400mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC HLD B028
Aperture:	f/6.3
Exposure Time:	0.006 sec (1/160)
Focal Length:	71mm
ISO:	400
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)
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