Fecamp

Fecamp sits in a break in the chalk cliffs of the Alabaster Coast and was a major cod-fishing port working the Newfoundland banks for centuries. Its landmark is the Palais Benedictine, built from 1888 by Alexandre Le Grand, a wine merchant who created a herbal liqueur and marketed it with a story that he had found a lost sixteenth-century monastic recipe; the monks of Fecamp had made liqueurs, but the drink is his. He built the palace as a distillery, museum and advertisement in one, in a Gothic and Renaissance pastiche, and it still distils. The abbey church nearby is longer than many cathedrals.

What you actually see

• The Palais Benedictine - a distillery built as a Gothic and Renaissance pastiche.
• The distillery - copper stills and the herb and spice store, still working.
• The abbey church - a Trinity abbey church of cathedral proportions.
• The chalk cliffs - the Alabaster Coast rising on both sides of the port.

When to go

April to October; the Palais is open year-round but with reduced winter hours. The clifftop walks either side of town need dry weather. The port is working and busiest early.

Honest expectations

The monastic origin story of the liqueur is nineteenth-century marketing, not history. The Palais tour ends in a tasting and shop. Fecamp town itself is workaday.

Nearby

Etretat lies northeast; Le Havre is southwest.