How many people can you get in a two-person gite?

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Sounds a bit like a trick question doesn’t it? But no there do seem to be some individual differences when answering this simple question of arithmetic.


Our gites are rented out for two people. This keeps the gites a haven of peace and quiet for all the guests who come here. Having said that, with two gites, nothing stops a family from renting both properties and then of course they can have their family around them and will not disturb the other party. I did think, when we started this enterprise, that this was clear and unambiguous, but apparently not.

We have had many requests for three people in a gite – “don’t worry the third person can sleep on the floor” and in our first year we were talked into agreeing to that on a couple of occasions, against our better judgement, and it just doesn’t work. Three people generate more noise than two and when you have two of everything (sleeping places, pillows, towels, chairs etc etc) the third person always comes up short. So after those experiences, we have had our original thoughts confirmed that a two-person gite should be just that, rented out for a maximum of two people.

We regularly get telephone calls from the French saying that they want to rent one of our gites for six people. They seem most baffled when I explain that they are for a maximum of two people – “don’t worry the rest can sleep on the floor”. And early in the year we had one person who wanted to come alone for two weeks but it then emerged that she was coming with her son and daughter for a couple of nights -“don’t worry they can sleep on the floor” and then the following week her daughter's parents-in-law would come for a few days “don’t worry they can sleep on the floor”. We reminded said person that we have a simple rule – each gite can be rented out for a maximum of two people, above that number both gites need to be rented.

One Monday this year we saw to our surprise an extra unidentified car in the courtyard. Obviously one of our gite guests had visitors, a bit strange that they didn’t tell us when the visitors arrived, but hey they are on holiday. The guests stayed all afternoon and into the evening and then stayed the night. We explained the two-person concept the next day “don’t worry they don’t mind sleeping on the floor”, the extra guests left to find alternative accommodation and the only noises to disturb the peace and quiet went back to being the woodpeckers in the forest and the frogs in the pond.