Fecamp in a picturesque town on the Normandy coast west of Dieppe and St Valery and to the east of Etretat.
The beaches are clean but the stones are larger than Brighton making sitting on it an acquired taste.
Looking eastward the cliff rises up marking the harbour entrance.
The coastguard tower is just over the brow of the cliff.
Harbour entrance
A yacht approaches the safety of the harbour which is well lit at night and easy to enter except when the wind is blowing strongly from the northwest.
It is always an event for the locals who wave in a friendly manner unless the boat catches their fishing lines and pull their rods off the wall.
The harbour quay is a busy thoroughfare.
The local residents take pride in the appearance of their homes with flower boxes and nautical bits.
However down the side streets it is very much a town alive with political posters from the recent French elections.
Walking northwards from the yacht moorings we come to the town centre with its distinctive church. Inside on a baking hot day it is deliciously cool.
Even after wartime damage there are many parts of Fecamp which retain centuries old charm.
Along with every other Norman port I’ve visited there is a plague swearing blind that William I’s fleet set out from here in 1066.
In practice some would have set out from every inlet. Just as in 1944 every Channel port on England’s south coast was packed with invasion barrages.
Back on the seafront people dine with these rather clever sun shades which can be angled to provide protection from which ever direction the wind or rain is coming from.
When the day is done the light sparkles from the moon and neon.