Hi,
We used to use phone cards to call home from our stays in Germany and Austria. On a recent trip, we brought our iPad Mini (WiFi only), downloaded/joined Skype (free) to enable us to make calls home to the U.S. We pre-loaded $20 worth of time on Skype (way too much). We spent roughy $3.00 for nearly 2 hours of talk time over the course of our trip. While signal strength/connectivity varied in the different B&B's we stayed in, we never had a problem using Skype. To clarify this, sometimes the breakfast room was the best place to Skype, other places the room was fine. Hope this helps someone heading to Europe and wanting to stay in touch with someone at home.
Paul