Chapelle of the greenery, Chapel in Équemauville, France
The Chapelle de Verdure, also known as Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, is a small stone chapel perched on a hill in Équemauville, in Normandy, overlooking Honfleur and the Seine estuary. It has a square bell tower and stained glass windows inside.
A first chapel on this site is said to date to 1023, when Richard II, Duke of Normandy, made a vow after surviving a storm at sea. The current building was constructed between 1600 and 1615, after a rockslide in 1538 destroyed the earlier structure.
Inside the chapel, the walls carry ex-votos left by sailors over the centuries: small ship models, painted panels, and plaques offered in thanks for safe returns. One of the stained glass windows shows a duke asking the Virgin Mary for help before a shipwreck, putting that same tradition into image.
The chapel is open every day and can be visited at any time during the day. Reaching it requires a short walk uphill, so comfortable shoes are a good idea, especially in wet weather when the path can be slippery.
When the rockslide of 1538 destroyed the original chapel, the altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary reportedly remained standing while everything else collapsed, a detail that local tradition has long treated as a miracle. The painter Claude Monet visited the area around Honfleur and made a painting of this chapel, drawn by the same simple setting that still greets visitors today.
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