What is Beyond?
ProvenceBeyond (Beyond The French Riviera) is a completely private Web, and for the most-part unfunded. Beyond is a one-person web. Beyond went on-line in Oct 1995, as a small personal project to share our passion with back-country villages and nature of Provence. The web grew, expanded and improved, until it took on a life of its own. Beyond is not part of any government, group, organization, town or tourist office. [ About Beyond ]
Since 2005 we have alo had a blog (ProvenceBlog) where you can follow what's new on Beyond.
What is Beyond About?
• The places beyond the normal tourist attractions of Provence and the French Riviera.
The small perched villages and sites of the "back country". Mountains, gorges, river valleys, lakes and wilderness parks.
• The birds, flora and fauna typical of this wild region.
• Astronomical observatories, local museums, glass blowing and perfume making.
• How to find places (maps) and how to get there (travel).
• History - of a region that was old when the Romans arrived.
• Provencal gastronomy, local recipes and food dictionaries.
• French wines, with explanations and information.
• French and regional sports: cycling and petanque, climbing and diving, ...
• Apologies - we have too much to list it all. You can browse and discover, use our search, or ask us via email.
What is Beyond NOT About?
• Not the French Riviera beaches, discothèques, nightclubs, jazz clubs, casinos, and the things you find in the normal guidebooks. You should use these guidebooks as well - Beyond doesn't replace them, it gives you something extra ... beyond the guidebooks. The Michelin green guides are especially good.
Brochures?
Can you please send us brochures or other information on the region?
All the information we have is visible to you on the Beyond Web site. We have no printed material, and no general information other than what you see here. If you have specific questions that fit the context and spirit of Beyond, we will do our best to help, especially if you take the time to say something about Beyond.
Do you reply to E-Mail?
We reply to most e-mail (if possible).
We try to reply within a few days, unless we're off on a Beyond research.
If the email is inappropriate to the content and spirit of Beyond (such as "send us brochures for St Tropez"), we can no longer take the time to reply. Omitting your name or not offering a minimum level of politeness also affects our decision to reply.
(see also our email page)
Why didn't you reply to my e-mail?
Please be sure to include your correct e-mail address in your message. The automatic return address in the message header does not always work. We have had some mail requesting information where the return address simply did not work (and we tried several different variations in an attempt to reply).
Put a specific subject in the title of the email. It will help us spot it faster among all the spam.
And please use your full name. We like to know who we are communicating with!
Also, we're human. Sometimes we forget, or lose the message, or do some other silly thing. Try us again.
This is a French web, why isn't it in French?
ProvenceBeyond (Beyond the French Riviera) lives in France and is very much about France.
Beyond is in English because my native language is English. We would like to offer a Version-Française but, with thousands of pages in a Web that's constantly growing and constantly changing, it would require a large staff to do the conversion and a small full-time staff to maintain it.
Why do you use multiple windows?
Our intention is to have Beyond Information Pages open in one window, and Beyond Maps open in a separate Map window, so you can locate places while reading about them.
• The Beyond homepage opens in your current (un-named) window.
• Clicking an information-page link takes you to the Beyond Information Window.
• Clicking a map link takes you to the Beyond Map Window.
• Clicking a map's information-page link takes you back to the Beyond Information Window.
Why are the photos grainy, or take so long to load?
We try to strike a balance between quality and speed, for our graphics and our web pages.
Photos are saved as JPEG/JPG. We try to keep the large photos under 50-60 k, which allows us a medium-low quality at about 650 pixels wide. We we put them on separate pages, and indicate the size, so you know what to expect.
Our earlier photos tend to be smaller and poorer quality than our more recent ones. Over the past ten years, we've improved our methods, our cameras and our graphics tools.
Copyright - May I use the contents of Beyond on my site?
The content of this Web, including all photographs, is copyrighted. If you wish to use any content for further distribution, please request permission. Send us an email explaining who you are and how you want to use the text or photo, and we'll get back to you.
Unfortunately, we've had extensive problems with plagiarism, mainly people copying our texts extensively and using our photos without permission. We've even had to resort to taking the official steps defined by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for a few web site owners. We now use a web-based protection service to detect these infringements.
Please just get in touch with us directly, and - in most cases - we'll be able to come to friendly agreements in the spirit of the web
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