I was in Europe a month ago and my I was having problems as well trying to get the GPS to lock. I was in Spain, Italy and Paris and it was doing the same thing as yours. Then I went on a cruise and there was no obstructions and after about 20 minutes I got 5 or 6 sat locks. I was using the older GPSviewer program which wasn't very reliable in my experience. I am back home in Vancouver now and have since upgraded to the new GPSviewer and I get locks even inside my house which I never got with the old program. Why don't you try installing the newest GPSviewer if you haven't already done so and see what happens? Good Luck!!
Here's the link:
http://www.holux.com/JCore/en/suppor...loadCenter.jsp
Look for the GPS viewer program with the most recent date