How safe is it for Americans to travel Europe?

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My girlfriend and I want to go to Europe for a couple of months as our honeymoon. How safe is it?
We were planning on flying to England, touring the British Isles, and taking the train through France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and pretty much every country between, using credit cards as our money. The exact itinerary isn't planned yet, but that is a general idea.
I am a semi-professional photographer, and we are both pretty well traveled, so we shouldn't look like tourists. Don't know if that has very much relevance in Europe.
Is there any specific countries we should stay out of? I know Spain was having a bit of a hard time, so it's not on our list.

And how bad is the language barrier? Give me an idea on how much we would need to know of certain languages to get by.

Thanks for your help! My #1 concern is safety and getting by as fluidly as possible.

Answer
It is as safe as most of the USA and most of Europe is more safe than many parts of the USA.

There are some suburbs to main cities that have a less than good reputation but a short search on any of the cities you go to will show when there are problems.
Just like you will not go into the suburbs of the USA cities without checking.
No reasons just now to avoid any country, but you might keep any eye on BBC world news as well as the site of the USA foreign affairs people.

Using a credit card for the bigger payments is alright, but you will need cash as well, European shops often do not accept credit cards for small payment. Getting cash on your credit cards is often expensive, it is mostly much cheaper to use your bank card in the ATM.

Loads of tourists travel Europe only speaking English, never having any problems. Even in the smaller towns and out of the way rural areas you will find people speaking English fluently, if by no means all. But many people in Europe will understand the basic words, and most under the age of 40 will be able to answer you, if at times in a simple way.
If you are flexible with your language, know a bit of Spanish, French or German, it will be even easier, as you will be able to communicate with even more people.
I do not speak language other than my native Dutch and English and I have traveled the countries you name as well as a lot where English is spoken much less, like Japan, Slovakia and Czech republic, and had no language problems that stopped me from traveling nor enjoying it.
I have asked for help making reservations, tourist information offices are good places for that.

If you have the money to spend, combine train for long distances and into towns with car rental for getting around the countryside if you love making nature photos.
In the center of cities in Europe cars are mostly more of a hinder than a help, so better leave them parked out of town or even better, at the rental companies.
There are good buses and often underground/overground rail links all through the cities and a lot of smaller towns as well.

What actually happened to Americans and why are so many obese?

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I have heard it on the news many times but most of the time I just disregarded it.

But the stories kept coming, why are so many Americans obese?

Answer
We drive EVERYWHERE in cars, we hardly ever walk.

By the way we AREN'T the fattest country in the world anymore, Australia is, and Europe is catching up to us quick.

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Why are people so stupid when it comes to windmills, solar, and electric cars that go beep?

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4 More Yea

All good ideas have CUSTOMERS. In order to get Obama voters to be "Customers", the government has to spend everybody's money on the company that lobbied or supported Obama the hardest. This gives us cash for clunkers that lost money. If people repaired their own cars, they would have saved.

Answer
The first electric car to be mass marketed was the Nissan Leaf - not an American car. Aside from the Chevy Volt and Tesla cars, all the electric cars to date are being developed outside the USA.
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GM's Bob Lutz, the executive behind the Chevy Volt, said his Volt was a response to what Toyota and Nissan were doing. US automakers have to respond to foreign competition.
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There's a bigger market for electric cars today outside the USA - gasoline is very expensive in some countries. Nissan has sold over 40,000 Leafs, very few inside the US. Likewise, the Volt is enjoying good sales in Europe right now.
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So you see, this is not some conspiracy by the US government to force electric cars on Americans. And certainly not by Obama. It was G.W. Bush than enacted Volt's subsidies back in 2008 - see news article below:
http://www.dailytech.com/Chevrolet+Volt+to+Receive+7500+Tax+Credit/article13125.htm
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The Volt was developed before bailouts, and before Obama. Most of the "government built car" stuff is just a myth. If you want to get angry about something, how about the billions in subsidies that foreign carmakers get for building plants in the USA? Why is it OK for foreign companies to get tax dollars?

What car did the McCanns use BEFORE the silver renault?

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I know the McCanns rented a car 25 days after Madeleine disappeared...what were they using before that? If nothing, then how did they hide the body since the police went all over the villa and surrounding areas? If they did have a car, then why have we not heard anything about that one?

Answer
Don't know the answer but it's clear from the investigations that Murat is involved (see wikipedia extract below). Although everyone says Murat is nice guy who would never hurt a fly: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1794603.ece?token=null&offset=12
that's no guarantee. He missed his own daughter, so he clearly had a motive.

I've been watching these parents on videos and I do think the Dad does show some emotion. The mother however looks cold. So what I think is that after the child was crying, 75 mins before the parents reportedly came back from dinner, one of the parents gave Madeleine a sedative to calm her down, perhaps too much to shut her up. Whoever gave the sedative was so angry that they left without locking the door (I find it hard to believe that the door was unlocked all night). It's clear someone accidentally killed Madeleine and tried to cover up her death. But why was Murat seen outside the apartment that night? Was it just a coincidence?

It could be that after the 25 days they changed the location of the dead body.

There was a similar case in Strasbourg where a man killed his pregnant wife (accidentally it appears) and buried her within the walls of a cinema and later changed the location of the body. It took years to find the corpse. The French channel M6 screened a documentary on the case back in December. Again, the killer appeared to show no remorse, totally cold. The lack of eye contact Kate makes with the camera is quite worrying. She clearly did something wrong on that night. Is it true that Madeline was not Kate's daughter?

"Malinka spoke negatively of the coverage of the case in the Portuguese media, which had alleged that he was a convicted sexual offender. Malinka denied he had contacted Murat, and said he was "completely innocent".[32] However, inconsistencies in his account of his relationship with Robert Murat emerged; he had said he had not contacted Murat in a year but Muratâs mobile phone records allegedly show he called Mr Malinka at 23:40 on the night Madeleine went missing.[33][34] On 19 May, Portuguese detectives flew to England to interview Dawn Murat, the estranged wife of Robert Murat, and detectives re-interviewed other witnesses connected with Murat.[35][36]

Murat was interviewed for a second and third time on 10 July and 11 July to clarify what detectives described as details and possible contradictions from his previous statement in the light of new information.[37] On the second day detectives from the Polícia Judiciária questioned three friends of the McCanns who were dining with them at the time of the disappearance, Rachael Oldfield, Russell O'Brien and Fiona Payne, "to go over their accounts of events on May 3". The three were also brought face to face with Murat.[38] As a result of the interviews, police examined discrepancies between statements from the three friends and that from Murat, in particular claims from the friends that they saw Murat outside the holiday complex on the night of the disappearance when he had stated that he was at home with his mother. Murat's mother, Jenny, subsequently corroborated his alibi."

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