I've slept under a feather bed in Germany at my great aunt's house, but there were a variety of covers for whatever eventuality during the night. So on a cold night, I slept with the blankets/sheets and the feather bed on top, and on a warm night, I'd pull the feather bed off. I've not seen/used these in any other house though.

In the Netherlands it's the same as in the above photo. In Turkey too. We had a smallish (though maybe not quite as small as that grey one above) over with layers of blankets below. It was perfectly comfortable.

Our hotel in Prague had the same thing as described above. Don't remember it being a problem but it also was fall and the nights were not that cold.

Hi

I can't speak for the photos but usually the duvets are "folded" once or twice to get the look in the pictures. The standard length is 2 meters by 1.4 meters. There is also an oversize of 2.2 meters by 1.55 meters. The standard 2 meter duvets are too short for me, I like to wrap the duvet around my feet. In the summer when it is really hot I like the standard size because I then like to let my feet hang out. :o)

I think England has their own duvet sizes which are a tad smaller but can't say for sure.

On another note. Here in Bavaria I know a few people who oodle all over American style bedding. I guess what you don't have will always be exotic no matter which side of the pond you are on.

In my native Germany, duvets are twin sized. To make the bed, most people fold them in half and give them a quarter turn so they retain their orientiation. It makes crawling into bed somewhat cumbersome.

I agree with the folding more so than the overall size of the duvet. Whenever I travel to Europe (especially Germany) duvets are folded once to sit like that on the bed. They usually unfold to a much larger size. To me, the above photo looks like a big pillow, and I move around way too much for that to be useful.

My boyfriend grew up in Australia using just "dunas" (duvets) without sheets, and he's got me hooked on it now! We have an oversized one (it's a Full/Queen on a Full bed), and love it. He's never mentioned using teeny ones perched on top? Maybe it's just not an Aussie thing.

Does anyone else think these look kind of stupid?

This reminds me of a feather bed. As a child I slept in a particularly cold corner of the house and my mother got me a feather bed (the size of the mattress) which went on top of the fitted sheet to sleep on and a duvet for on top (oversized). I was a very lucky little girl.

I'm not really a fan of the look...to me the beds in the first picture look like two lovely little beds with half deflated (or inflated for the optimists) air mattresses sitting on top.

I agree that in the photo, the "duvets" look more like big pillows. If they are actually duvets and not pillows, I think this is more feasible where you use a quilt or at least a flat sheet alongside it. We stopped using a flat sheet a long time ago because we never saw the point in it, and so if we were to fold our duvet like in the photo, you'd just see the fitted sheet underneath. What's the point of a quilt AND a duvet, unless it's so cold you need both...

My grandmother had these (she's from Wurzburg, Germany), I think it is a European thing. She also had featherbeds for every single bed in the house.

I actually like the look...

I'll be interested to learn the answer! Years ago I spent a month in a Swiss (Geneva) boardinghouse that provided a tiny duvet (about 3x4 feet) which I never understood how to use -- if you cover your feet, your shoulder is cold; if you cover your shoulder, your feet are cold. I spent the month sleeping in my coat and curled into the tiniest space I could manage. Someone please explain the method here!!!

Definitely not a European thing, never seen such tiny duvets in any European country. The duvet, tickness depending on the time of the year, is usually bigger than the bed and in hotels they tend to fould it in half so it looks neat. You unfould it when you go to sleep.
Some European countries also use a thin sheet under the duvet. I've seen this in England for example.

in austria, we use these as feather beds. the duvet is more twin sized and folded on the bed.

In Germany - today -- we use two duvets on a bed for two people, each of which is certainly large enough to cover any extruding limbs. Some hotels and homes then fold them in half during the day (we don't) In Germany -- in the past -- an extra layer was used like the photo above, to add yet another layer of warmth when heat didn't reach all corners of a home.... hope that helps!

I'm European, and I think I can explain at last some of those duvets...

In many European countries (such as Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, etc., etc.), people who sleep together on a bed each have their own duvet. As other posters have described, these duvets are much larger than the ones in these pictures, and are folded in half, and turned.

The images above do not depict those sorts of duvets; as you can clearly see, they have not been folded in half.

I think that image 3, and perhaps even 1 (as a sort of variation) depict the use of decorative eiderdowns in the British fashion (no one else in Europe did it this way, or sized them like this; it is uniquely British).

The British, when they adopted eiderdowns (perhaps picked up when they went on the Grand Tour). Eiderdowns were -- and are -- incredibly expensive, and very, very warm (warmer than regular duvets, and lighter). In order to save money, they bought smaller sized eiderdowns in decorative quilted (non-removable) covers, and put them on top of beds already made with sheets and blankets. They were both decorative, and provided extra warmth (remember -- houses didn't have central heating until relatively recently).

Here are some examples:

http://diaryofatinyholder.blogspot.com/2010/10/bargains-and-beautiful-eiderdown.html

http://www.decorativecountryliving.com/eiderdown_ve513.html

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/06/sneak-peek-karen-barlow.html/karenbarlow7

Images 2 and 4 look like someone is trying to reuse a toddler duvet, perhaps as a napping spot for a pet (hey, that's where our cats sleep). As for image 5, it looks like a slightly-smaller-than-normal-sized duvet.

Hope this helps.

In my humble experience, i would say it's an édredon (in english "eyderdown", i think: a quilt filled with down -originally from the eider- or some other soft material.). We had them in our country house and at my grand-parents. (though wayyyy plushier_if that's even a word...) We had sheets and blankets and on cold nights we put those duvets on top. Many northern european country have kept the trend but modernized it.

I used these when I was living in Norway. I would love to have one now, but I haven't been able to find them in America. They may not be pretty but they were very comfortable.

I first saw these at a hotel in the Swiss Alps, but they were much, much thicker.

@BonneProjects, yes. They just don't look very practical to me, but then my feet always hang off the edge of the bed.

Zhahira - it's spelt doona in Australia & some people use sheets under it & some dont...

We dont do the tiny ones, but have seen them in Germany

I do this on my bed at home, but not with a duvet. I have a daybed, and it looks so much cleaner to have the fitted sheet show and then half-fold all my covers together and lay them over the bed. Makes making the bed in the morning way faster, too.

In fairness to #4, sometimes you just need extra insulation over your feet, in a very cold old house!

Looks very comfortable but odd from a design standpoint.

this is common in china and asia too. it's perfect for sticking your feet out of silk down comforters, because you can always curl up your legs/feet.

I'm visiting my sister in Copenhagen right now, and she has this type of bedding - 2 small duvets on a queen size bed, with no top sheet or additional blankets like shown above. She said it's just what they do here, so it's the only kind you can find in the stores. I think it's pretty cute, actually! She has a white bottom sheet with charcoal gray duvets and pillows. It looks very simple and clean. The versions shown above with the extra blankets look a bit odder to me.

In Europe, duvets are traditionally used almost everywhere but I don't think there is a "rule" for whether they are two single duvets or one big two-person duvet. That's just a matter of taste. I always use one big one, because cuddling up to your bedpartner is a hassle when you have two single duvets. You both end up fighting the gap between the two. The downside of a big one, of course, is that someone inevitably hogs it for him or herself :P

I saw one of these eiderdown's in the book "The Perfect English Cottage" and fell in love. Though you can still find vintage eiderdown's, I purchased one from Cath Kidston, UK.

I really love the neat look of it, and from a practical standpoint, we have a quilt and sheets on the bed, sometimes I just want a little something on my legs (and my husband doesn't). This size works perfectly for us.

Eiderdowns are not to be confused with duvets. The eiderdown was used on top of sheets and blankets in a fully made up bed (Victorian and way before), duvets are used as a stand alone bedding here in the UK and for us are a much more modern concept, really only coming in to very common use in the past 30 or so years.

The smaller fluffier quilts are eiderdowns not duvets. I forgot to add that. LOL