Water from the mountains courses down a channel in rue Cagnoli, the narrow. sloping street that forms the old heart of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, an Alpine town Hervé Gourdel knew so well.
It is a world away from the theatre of an ugly war waged by Islamic State without concern for the Geneva Convention or ordinary standards of decency.
West of that conflict in Syria and northern Iraq, Hervé thought himself safe, arriving in the hills of Algeria to lead a small party of fellow-mountaineering enthusiasts on a trek in the Tizi Ouzou region. His elderly parents had been apprehensive; "don't worry, it's not Iraq," he told his mother.
In Saint-Martin Vésubie, several days after the murder (NB: will television and radio reporters please stop saying he was "executed"? He was not), people seemed numb.
A couple of television vans were parked in the village square, but most media activity had moved on, for the coverage of homages in Nice, Hervé Gourdel's home city and birthplace, and elsewhere.
In rue Cagnoli, by the first of two coincidences, we find the hotel we've booked, Le Gelas, is a few minutes' walk from Escapade, the mountain guide centre M Gourdel helped to run. His contact number, for canyoning and other activities, was still among those listed in the door window. And we discover this coincidence only when sitting down for lunch at La Trappa, a good, honest restaurant remembered from previous visits, which is at right angles to Escapade, suddenly unmissable as the eyes catch the poignant floral tributes arranged outside.
"Words cannot describe it," says the restaurateur quietly, after wandering over to replace one of the candles placed among the flowers. He naturally knew his neighbour well, as did so many in this close-knit village.
One of those past visits to Saint-Martin-Vésubie had fallen on the same weekend as commemorations to honour the families of two wartime gendarmes who risked everything to hide Jewish children from the Nazi occupiers.
At the town hall, just off rue Cagnoli, M Gourdel's photograph is displayed. People pause to sign a book of condolences. "J'adore ce village," I write, "et c'est evident que le village adorais Hervé. RIP."
Then it was time to head off to the hills above the village, still reflecting on the vicious, shameful taking of Hervé Gourdel's life and the name of the shop that stands next door to Escapade: Forget-me-not.
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