Hi everyone, my wife and I will be going to Europe for the first time on the "From the Thames to the Tiber" tour in June. We were trying to pick up some of the different languages, but we haven't been consistent. Anyway, I know this tour has a lot of time to ourselves and I am a little nervouse about communication and getting around. My wife keeps assuring me that most people speak English and we will be fine. Is there difficulty in communicating not knowing hardly any of the language or am I being overly worried?

Many people in Europe do speak English quite well. In fact many want to speak it with you to practice. However, it is always best to ask someone first. "Excuse me - Do you speak English?" Some people see it as arrogant if one just assumes everyone speaks English.

Our daughter told us (she took a Europe tour several years ago). .. .. . she said that we should not ASK them if they speak English because it is arrogant of us to think they should speak our language when we don't speak theirs. She said to try talking to them and try to explain that you do not speak "french.. . or whatever language it is) and let them offer to speak to you in English if they know how.

It does seem a little more polite to me, to just say that I can't speak french. I am getting that phrase written on a little card for each country we are going to. GLobus also gave us a booklet that has common words and phrases to learn in each country's language.

I've traveled to Europe 4 times and never had a problem with the language.The tour guide will teach you some key phrases and it is true that most everyone speaks English.Most of the time you are with the group and the TD will handle everything.. .

My husband and I just returned from Italy. We started our vacation with the Best of Italy tour and then did some touring on our own. We never had a problem with the language in the tourist areas we visited. Off the tourist trail, it was often hard to find people who spoke English. I speak Italian, so we did not have any difficulties. I would always speak to people we met in Italian because we were in their country and I also wanted to practice my Italian. The majority of the time, they would reply in English. I'm not quite sure how they knew I spoke English. I asked our Tour Director about this. She said that they were just trying to be helpful. The only place where people spoke Italian back to me was Florence.