I think first-time visitors to Europe like yourselves face all kinds of challenges. There's a whole lot of stuff that's completely new and very challenging, stuff you need to figure out right away, stuff that your RS book doesn't begin to cover. You mention public transportation, a really stressful challenge in any new country. I predict right now that in London and in other cities, where English is rumored to be widely spoken, you will once again find it quite stressful to get around, and you will also find it difficult to get answers to your questions. I cannot tell you how confusing it was for me to obtain a train ticket and to actually carry out my round-trip journey between MAN airport and the Slaithwaite station. And I am in no way a stranger to train travel around England. My fellow travelers could not answer simple questions. The railway counter personnel misguided me through Manchester Piccadilly station such that I nearly missed my train. Other rail officials could not tell me whether the announcement I read promising substitute bus service was accurate, or whether there would be a real train to ride. No one I asked questions of had accurate answers for me. The station had lockers - and lacked lockers - depending on who I asked. I could not even pronounce Slaithwaite accurately without being corrected, and could still not pronounce it after the conductor pronounced it for me - then the friendly passenger across from me informed me that the conductor had mispronounced the town's name... and he then utterred for me the "REAL" pronunciation, which I was also unable to duplicate. Gave me quite a laugh, but not all that helpful.
In other words, communication in my native language was majorly unproductive, and sometimes you just strike out with the individuals you approach, even official ones.
In GERMANY, a certain number of people you ran into probably did not speak English, probably because they aren't Germany-educated. There are many new immigrants to Germany, people who might be European-looking and sometimes know English, and sometimes they might know the answers to your questions but are reluctant to respond for obvious reasons. Immigrants with public-service positions as shop clerks and bus drivers and taxi drivers struggle to learn the German they need but do not always speak English. Elsewhere in those touristy destinations you spent time in, you may have been asking questions of fellow tourists, people from France or Italy or other places who might look like Germans (who usually DO speak English) but do not speak English or do not speak it comfortably or do not have enough knowledge to answer your questions. I am a white, sorta European-looking old man, and when I'm in Germany at a train station or walking on the street, I sometimes get asked for directions; if the question isn't in English or in German, I just shrug, smile and move on. If it's in English or German, I usually have to tell them that I have no clue, which I do not. I am not being uncommunicative or unhelpful - I am just plain ignorant and incapable.
IME "...the German's lack of interest in speaking English" is a myth. Real Germans educated in Germany tend to be very communicative and eager to practice their English. That said, they often are just as clueless about the details of their own transportation system, which are very complex to begin with, and cannot be fully depended on for accurate answers to my (or your) specific travel problems.
