If you are visiting cities such as Barcelona, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam, you will find that English is widely spoken in the places which tourists visit. However, as others have pointed out, it is polite to have the basic hello, goodbye, please and thank you in the local language.

Wherever I've traveled, I've always learned at minimum a few phrases in the language of each country I visit. Even in Scandinavia, people seemed pleased (or amused?) that I asked them in their native language if they spoke English rather than just springing English on them without warning.

I haven't been to Eastern Europe, but relatives who have tell me that German sometimes works when English doesn't. In the former Soviet Union, for instance, people were required to study a foreign language, and the two most popular choices were English and German, with French a distant third.

Yes, I've heard there is a big difference between Portugal and Spain -- it comes with being a smaller country, no doubt. An interesting point about Portugal is that they watch American films and TV with subtitles rather than dubbing (like the Dutch but unlike the French or Germans for whom everything is dubbed in their own language).

The rest of my experience is like yours. Since I know some German, it was fun sometimes exchanging a few broken sentences in German with some people only to find out they were also native English speakers like me.

In the Czech Republic, I had a couple of occasions when there was an obvious language barrier and the question "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" was put to me. In Poland, I wouldn't exactly go around greeting people in German, though :-).

German and French are good back-up languages. I have heard -- but not personally confirmed -- that Russian can provoke hostile responses from some Eastern Europeans. English is a nice, safe, neutral language especially in Central and Eastern Europe and more and more of the younger generation are learning it.

Just got back from Paris myself. I had 10 years of grade school french about 30 years ago. So I know a bunch of french but it is rusty. I used the french quite a bit in Paris. I stayed at a US chain hotel - higher end - the staff both both French and English perfectly they were very happy I spoke French but also very happy to switch to English when the discussion got complicated. I took a taxi to Orly one morning and the driver was originally from Portugal he knew almost no English we had a very nice conversation in French about our pets and so forth during the 30 minute ride. He lost his dog recently but has two canaries and I told him about my dog. He probably could understand you want to go to the airport in English but he probably would not talk to you after that if you only know English. I have been to Barcelona for a few days last year stayed at a 3* hotel in the city they spoke some English but I talked to them mainly in spanish my spanish is much worse than my french about 1 year of high school spanish although I hear it a lot more in LA than I hear French. I have spent a month in Madrid where I got to practice but that was a while ago. I know enough to ask for basic things in spanish and this was useful in Barcelona. While in Madrid - that trip was around 10-15 years ago - I definitely used the spanish i remember being there with some French colleagues and they could not order food in the restaurant they asked me to order in spanish for them. I remember not a lot of people speaking English well in Madrid and making definite use of my bad spanish there.

In Italy I know almost no Italian but I also find many more people in the big cities like Rome know a language other than Italian. Also they wave their hands around and I am very good at waving my hands I had no problems communicating in Rome without knowing any Italian. I ate a bunch of times at a small neighborhood restauarant the waiter spoke 3-4 languages and would come and chat with me in English when I was eating alone. Also knowing a bit of spanish does help with italian they are not the same language but people may understand enough of the spanish to communicate. The Italian culture strikes me as one where they are happy and willing to try to communicate using many different methods all at once.

I have been to the Netherlands you need not know Dutch at all everybody speaks English. My last trip to Amsterdam I got in the taxi with a couple of friends and the taxi driver looks at us and asks us in English if we are German and we said no American and he said good.

The place I have the hardest time is Germany. In the big cities they speak English but less so in the Countryside and I know no German other than counting to ten and a few other random words. And they typically do not know the romance languages that I know.

That depends where you are. In Tallinn, for example, once people found out that I'm not from there nor from Russia, things change for the better. Same with other countries like Bulgaria. In CZ and PL I would use Russian as a last resort mostly because the number of people that would understand is is quite low in my experience.

Uh oh, I'm going to Poland for 2 nights and don't speak one word of Polish. This is gonna be interesting, I should take up travel writing

Somewhat off-topic:
July 28th - September 26th on an Aussie passport - that's less than 90 days I think so I should be fine too?

That's only 60 days, so it should not be a problem.

I used to live in Barcelona for 4 years and must say people dont speak English there..

Again, uh oh!

There's a difference between visiting somewhere and living there, though.

When you visit somewhere, you're interesting in communicating, and you're dealing more with people involved in tourism.

When you live somewhere, you want to be able to converse as well as communicate, and are dealing with people in a much larger variety of capacities.

I've visited Barcelona and Warsaw several times, speak neither Catalan nor Polish, and have not had a single communication problem.

(I've also visited several remote parts of countries with obscure languages and alphabets where English isn't spoken. You can always communicate without a common language, it just takes more patience.)

People in the tourist industry in Barcelona speak English, usually. Remember that English is spoken, to a greater or lesser extent, by people from all of the world, especially the travelling population of the world. So the person on the hotel reception desk in Barcelona or the bartender in Warsaw will not only be speaking to you in English, but also to visitors from Hungary, Japan, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, etc, etc...

But do try to say at least "hello"and "thank you" in the local language.

There are sometimes problems that only by speaking another language can they be best solved.

About 10 years ago, I was in Prague and travelled by train to another Czech city. I was underneath the Prague train station in the metro station when I realised I had left my mobile telephone and a book in the seat pocket on the train. I ran upstairs and was lucky to find the conductor getting off the train. I explained in English what happened and he advised me to go to the station "Lost and Found" office.

This did not sound very promising to me, so I asked him again, but this time, in German (many Czechs speak German especially outside Prague). This time, he opened the train for me and came with me to the car where I was sitting. I was able to get my things back immediately.

I have had other experiences as well where knowing another language has given me benefits that otherwise I could not have had. It cannot hurt to know more.

Absolutely. But realistically most people is not going to learn much more in the few weeks before a trip: it usually takes several years for most people to be able to express themselves well in another language, unless they either are living in the country or really devote themselves to study.