Visiting the Étretat Gardens at the top of Normandy’s mythical cliffs: prices, access and review

At the beginning of November, I drove to Étretat in Normandy to discover the Jardins d'Étretat (also known in English as the Étretat Gardens), a contemporary garden perched on top of the most famous cliffs on the Alabaster Coast. There you find a rather unique mix of impeccably trimmed topiaries, contemporary artworks, and spectacular views over the English Channel and the Aiguille d'Étretat, the famous needle-shaped rock formation. The site was completely redesigned by a Russian landscape architect, while preserving the spirit of the original Belle Époque villa, Villa Roxelane.

As you plan your visit, you'll probably wonder how to get there from the village, where to park now that the clifftop parking lot has closed, how much time to allow on site, and whether the Jardins d'Étretat are really worth the detour compared with simply walking along the cliff paths.

In this article, I'll take you on a guided walk through the different sections of the garden and give you a complete practical guide to organizing your visit to the Jardins d'Étretat in 2026. You'll see that the history of the place is almost as fascinating as what you discover while wandering its paths.

The Jardins d'Étretat, or the story of love at first sight

To understand the history of the Jardins d'Étretat, you have to go back to 1905. An actress, Madame Thébault, a close friend of Claude Monet, became the owner of a superb Belle Époque villa built by the Parisian architect Louis Valentin on the heights of Étretat, in the middle of a 3000 to 4000 m² (about 32,000 to 43,000 sq ft) park. The house was given the name "Villa Roxelane", a reference to the role of Roxelane played by the actress.

A nature lover, she called on landscape designer Auguste Lecanu to design the grounds. The century-old trees planted at that time have been preserved and still today give the garden a very strong vertical structure, which interacts with the nearby cliffs.

The years went by, the garden was neglected, landscaping trends changed, and the villa eventually went up for sale along with its park. The view could have seduced anyone, but it left one man completely spellbound: Alexandre Grivko, born in 1975, who discovered the site during a stay on the Alabaster Coast.

Originally from Russia, he first studied economics before giving free rein to his first passion, gardens, by enrolling at the International School of Floral Design in Moscow. He opened a shop in Moscow but was very quickly approached for more ambitious projects. With a partner, Mark Dumas, Alexandre Grivko founded the company IL Nature and designed around fifty private gardens where he gave free rein to his boundless creativity, often away from prying eyes.

Then one day, Alexandre Grivko came to spend a few days in Étretat in Normandy… and fell irreversibly in love with the place. He bought the property, acquired an additional 3000 m² (about 32,000 sq ft) of land, then embarked on the bold project of creating an exceptional garden on top of the cliffs of Étretat, open to the public. It is this ambition, combined with an already extremely powerful natural site, that gives the Jardins d'Étretat such a strong identity today.

Two years of work to create the Jardins d'Étretat

It took two years of intensive work and tens of thousands of plantings to transform Villa Roxelane into a contemporary garden open to the public.

Art has this almost magical ability to make us forget all the work, constraints, and difficulties that had to be overcome to achieve excellence. At the Jardins d'Étretat, the result feels fluid, almost obvious, even though the project demanded enormous effort: building low walls, dealing with flint-rich soil that made deep digging impossible, hauling hundreds of tons of earth to the top of the cliffs to work around the problem, designing a planting scheme capable of withstanding wind and sea spray, planning how visitors would move through the garden… and, above all, giving meaning to the whole.

In all, 200 people were involved, 35,000 plants were put in the ground, and many works of art were installed throughout the garden. For Alexandre Grivko, it was a unique opportunity to show his work to the general public, far from the private estates he had been working on until then. During my visit, I really felt this desire to stage both Étretat's natural landscape and a very personal imaginative world.

Discovering the Jardins d'Étretat

You explore the Jardins d'Étretat like a walk in several "acts," each with its own atmosphere, artworks, and references to the sea and cliffs.

At the garden entrance, a simple little trailer blends into the landscape; this is where you buy your ticket to get in or scan the ticket you booked in advance.

Then you come to this gate where three round, soothing sculptures welcome you and immediately set the tone: here, the garden is also an open-air art gallery.

You then reach the top of the gardens, which stretch along the hillside and which you explore via immaculate gravel paths. The bushes curl up like large seashells, clipped to perfection. A sculpture by Alena Kogan, called "A Seashell," is even suspended in midair, like a nod to the nearby sea.

The Avatar Garden

The Avatar Garden is the first immersion into the sound-filled, fairytale world of the Jardins d'Étretat, with its sculpted holly bushes and its "inhabited" forest.

A suggested route is marked out, but I personally preferred to let myself be guided by the pleasure of discovering the Jardins d'Étretat intuitively, veering off whenever a piece of art caught my eye. That is also part of the experience: everyone leaves with their own impressions. As for me, I immediately thought of Alice in Wonderland.

What first caught my attention was this huge golden key stuck into a tree, a work called Greyworld and the Clockwork Forest. Greyworld is a collective of London artists, and their work, Clockwork Forest, first came to life in England, in Grizedale Forest in the north of the country.

Turn the key and listen closely: you'll discover another distinctive feature of the garden, speakers hidden in the vegetation that immerse you in a subtle soundscape. This "Avatar Garden," inspired by the film of the same name, showcases a wealth of holly varieties that stand side by side with the centuries-old trees planted in Madame Thébault's time. You really get the feeling that the garden is breathing all around you.

The Elements Garden

My steps then lead me toward the very beautiful Villa Roxelane, which overlooks the sea and the cliffs from one of the most spectacular viewpoints in the Jardins d'Étretat. Today it houses the offices and workspaces of the gardeners, whom you can easily imagine busy maintaining this painstaking harmony.

There are between 3 and 5 of them – depending on the season – taking care of the garden, meticulously trimming the bushes, monitoring the health of the plants, and making sure nothing disturbs the gentle feel of the paths. Sometimes you're lucky enough to see them at work, which gives a very concrete sense of the effort needed to maintain all these shapes.

This brings you out onto a terrace overlooking the sea and the Aval cliff with its famous Needle. A bamboo sculpture by Wiktor Szostalo, representing Claude Monet in the act of painting, stands on the terrace, a tribute to the Impressionists, many of whom stayed in Étretat, and to Claude Monet himself, who painted several canvases here and regularly visited Villa Roxelane.

And always, these shell-like shapes that pay tribute to the region, coiling in on themselves as if they were mimicking the cliffs.

The Emotions Garden

The Emotions Garden is the most iconic part of the Étretat Gardens, with its round faces that interact with the shapes of the plants.

It's impossible to forget; it inevitably arouses visitors' curiosity. It must be said that two arts meet here: Alexandre Grivko sculpted his plants so they would respond to the "Raindrops" sculpted in elastomer resin by Samuel Salcedo.

Large round faces, benevolent, expressive, by turns mischievous and sleepy, or sometimes seeming to breathe in the salty air with full lungs. During my visit, I spent a long time looking for the one with the most unexpected expression.

You very quickly get caught up in trying to capture their expressions, from one vantage point to another in the garden. Here you are in one of the lowest parts of the garden, representing low tide, with these heads seemingly stranded between the waves of greenery.

The Orchid Garden

You then climb back up toward the Orchid Garden, which makes it very clear that the Étretat Gardens are not all about flowers. When I visited in autumn, I didn't see any orchids there, which actually allowed me to pay closer attention to the underlying structure of the place: the shapes, the foliage, the flowing lines, and this impression of a sculpted garden that still works beautifully even when the flowers are more discreet.

There are indeed some blooms depending on the season — azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas, agapanthus — but the garden is mostly home to evergreen plants, so it remains very engaging in autumn and winter. No doubt spring adds a slightly more magical touch, but I really liked this more graphic and tranquil version of the garden.

You'll find a lot of yews, boxwoods, and muehlenbeckia, which forms a true living carpet that helps retain some moisture at ground level and keeps it from drying out in the sometimes strong winds on the Étretat cliffs. This carpet really gives you the impression of walking above a sea of greenery.

The Garden of Embraces and Trees

The Garden of Embraces and Trees showcases the bond between people and nature through large silhouettes made of vine wood.

Here you'll discover a group of vine-wood figures created by Agnieszka Gradnik and Viktor Szostalo. They are part of the "Treehugger Project". You may have heard of this wellness practice that involves "hugging trees" to feel close to nature and in harmony with it.

"These playful sculptures remind us that as human beings, we are an integral part of our natural environment. They take us back to childhood memories of climbing trees, when playing outside with friends was part of our daily lives. Have you ever seen someone climb a tree without holding it tight?

Our project offers a great opportunity to reach local communities, to show that taking a stand for the environment can be done in a fun and apolitical way. It reminds us that contemporary art can be entertaining and can transform the way we perceive our world" (Agnieszka Gradnik and Viktor Szostalo).

So you see these figures lining up to give a tree a hug (a "tree hug" in English), young and old, men and women, able-bodied or in a wheelchair.

A little farther on, another figure is waiting, with a box placed beside it asking for a few coins "For happiness", like a small installation that is both funny and gentle.

Then your attention is caught by a loooooong wooden table, designed by Thomas Rösler (like other pieces of raw-wood furniture you'll find in the gardens). It invites you to take a break in the middle of the flower-shaped sculpted bushes, like a banquet ready to welcome characters from a storybook.

Have we stumbled upon Tom Thumb's dining room? The Seven Dwarfs'? The table where the Mad Hatter and his guests are about to celebrate an unbirthday? The table was carved from a single piece of an old oak tree, which gives it a very strong presence in the landscape.

In the background, you catch sight of arches that clearly evoke the famous arches of the cliffs of Étretat. You slip under these arches to reach the next garden, with the sea always in the distance.

The Garden of Sounds of Nature and the Parnassus Garden

The Garden of Sounds of Nature plays with sound and language, while the Parnassus Garden offers a more intimate space in the middle of the bamboo.

First, there is a discreet staircase leading to a small sheltered space in the middle of the bamboo. At the very back, a bench lets you sit down, alone in the world, for a few moments of calm. It is one of the rare places in the garden where you can truly get away from the flow of visitors.

Then comes the part of the Jardins d'Étretat that intrigued me the most. Terracotta sculptures are suspended in the air; you hear a multitude of sounds blending together while, in the background, the garden rises again with a new swirl of bushes evoking a seashell.

In fact, these 50 hanging pieces created by Sergey Katran have a very distinctive feature: they generate waves that "pronounce" the word "Art" in a multitude of languages so that every visitor, wherever they come from, can try to catch the language that is familiar to them. It is an installation that works particularly well in Étretat, a village very popular with an international audience.

Sergey Katran's installation[/caption>

Visiting the Jardins d'Étretat: access, parking, prices and visit duration

The Jardins d'Étretat are easy to visit in half a day from the village, combining a walk up on foot or by little train, exploring the garden, and a walk along the Amont cliff.

I have already introduced you on the blog to several parks and gardens and, without a doubt, the Jardins d'Étretat are among the must-see places if you are going to Normandy. For their exceptional setting, of course, but also for their ability to combine poetry, imagination, nature, and creativity.

The Jardins d'Étretat are located on avenue Damilaville, on the Amont cliff, above the village and the beach. The entrance is a few minutes' walk from the Notre-Dame de la Garde chapel. I suggest you book a ticket in advance, especially in high season, to avoid lines on site and secure your visit time slot.

Access to the Jardins d'Étretat from the village

You can reach the Jardins d'Étretat either on foot via the paths along the Amont cliff, or by taking the little tourist train that climbs up from the village center.

From the center of Étretat, you can walk up to the Amont cliff by following the stairs and the path that start from the beach, just to the right when facing the sea. The climb is fairly steep but short, and you should allow around fifteen minutes of walking to reach the chapel esplanade, then a few extra minutes to get to the garden entrance.

If you have difficulty walking or if you are traveling with young children, you can also go up to the top of the cliff by taking Étretat's little tourist train (for a fee). It runs between the village center, the main parking lots, and the top of the cliff, which really simplifies logistics on very busy days.

Where to park to visit the Jardins d'Étretat?

To visit the Jardins d'Étretat, you need to park in one of the parking lots down below and finish the trip on foot or by the small train up to the Falaise d'Amont.

Since 2019, cars have no longer been allowed to park at the top of the Falaise d'Amont, where the entrance is located, in order to protect the coastline. The parking lot that used to be right in front of the entrance to the Jardins d'Étretat has therefore disappeared, which slightly changes the habits people had before.

Consequently, to park, you can choose between several parking lots:

• A free parking lot at 5 Route de Criquetot l'Esneval, about a half-hour walk from the Jardins d'Étretat.
• A paid parking lot at 20 Route du Havre, a 20–25-minute walk from the Gardens.
• Another paid parking lot at 25 Rue Guy de Maupassant (the car park is behind a parking lot intended for buses), about a 20-minute walk away.
• A very small paid parking lot on Place Maurice Guillard, opposite the tourist office, very convenient but often full in high season.

You can find the rates and schedules for these parking lots on the town hall website, with details of the paid periods. In practice, I'd recommend arriving early in the morning or later in the day on sunny spring and summer weekends, especially during French school holidays and public-holiday weekends, as Étretat attracts many visitors and the parking lots fill up quite quickly.

Prices, opening hours, and best time to visit the Jardins d'Étretat

The Jardins d'Étretat are open for a large part of the year, with longer hours in summer, and the visit is worthwhile in every season thanks to the evergreen plantings.

You can find up-to-date opening hours on the official Gardens website. There is usually a closure period in the middle of winter, often in January, for maintenance and pruning of the plants. The rest of the time, hours vary between low season (opening in late morning, closing in late afternoon) and high season, with longer days.

In terms of timing, I'd recommend:

• Spring, for the light, the blooms that complement the plant structure, and days that are already longer.
• Early summer, when the Alabaster Coast is very pleasant and the sea views take on a strong intensity.
• Autumn, if you enjoy slightly calmer atmospheres and softer colors, as during my visit.

Winter is still an option when the gardens are open, thanks to the predominance of foliage and topiaries. You just need to be well prepared for the wind and cold at the top of the cliffs, and accept more changeable conditions.

How much time should you plan for the visit?

You should plan at least 1½ hours to visit the Jardins d'Étretat, and closer to 2 hours if you enjoy taking photos or reading the artwork labels.

The garden's surface area is not huge on paper, but it is designed as a succession of spaces, with viewpoints, sound installations, and numerous sculptures. You quickly find yourself stopping to observe a detail, take a photo of a facial expression, or simply stand facing the sea for a few minutes. For a first visit, I think a 1½- to 2-hour time slot is very comfortable, without rushing.

The ideal plan is to combine the visit with a walk along the Falaise d'Amont (chapel, staircase down to the Tunnel du Chaudron, path along the cliffs), then allowing for a full half-day for this part of Étretat. This lets you alternate time spent visiting the garden, more contemplative moments on the cliff, and photo breaks.

Eating and drinking near the Jardins d'Étretat

The Jardins d'Étretat have an on-site café, which is convenient for taking a break during or after your visit, especially when the wind is blowing on the Falaise d'Amont.

Depending on the season and opening hours, you can plan on having a hot drink, a sweet break, or a small snack directly at the Gardens. The site also offers restrooms and a souvenir shop set up inside Villa Roxelane.

However, the spirit of the place remains that of an art garden, rather than a picnic area. For a proper meal, I would suggest heading back down to the center of Étretat, where you will find restaurants, crêperies, tearooms, and other places that are more suitable if you want to have lunch peacefully before or after your visit.

What to do around the Jardins d'Étretat?

After visiting the Jardins d'Étretat, the Falaise d'Amont offers several additional walks with beautiful viewpoints over the village and the sea.

You can continue exploring the Falaise d'Amont with the Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Garde, which dominates the landscape, then take the staircase leading to the Tunnel du Chaudron for a beautiful walk down to the foot of the cliffs at low tide. It is a very different way of experiencing the height of the cliffs you have just seen from the garden.

You can also take a look at this article where I go into detail about what to do in Étretat: you will find plenty of tips, great places to go, and photos of the cliffs themselves, so you can extend your discoveries beyond the Jardins d'Étretat.

Should you visit the Jardins d'Étretat during a stay in Étretat?

The Jardins d'Étretat are a very good complement to discovering the cliffs, offering another way of looking at the landscape, more artistic and more intimate.

If it is your first visit to Étretat and you do not have much time, I would recommend starting with the main highlights: the Falaise d'Aval and Falaise d'Amont, the beach, the village, and the viewpoints from the paths. They are what immediately give you a sense of the scale of the site.

On the other hand, if you have at least a full day there, if you are coming back to Étretat after a first stay, or if you enjoy gardens, contemporary art, and slightly unusual places, the Jardins d'Étretat are really worth adding to your itinerary. They offer different framings on the Falaise d'Aval, a calmer atmosphere, and a more creative interpretation of the landscape.

During my stay, the Jardins d'Étretat were one of my favorite places in Étretat. I had the feeling of stepping into an almost theatrical set, where every perspective has been designed to highlight the encounter between nature, the artistic history of the place, and a fully embraced contemporary creativity.

Traveler's memo for visiting the Jardins d'Étretat

Here are the answers to the most frequently asked questions about the Jardins d'Étretat, their prices, how to get there, and the practical organization of your visit.