You need to take a test to get a licence. For CPL that's in an airplane, for an ATPL it would be done in a SIM.
If you have 500 hours on the same type you can just do an ATPL skills test which will give you the ATPL and the Type Rating.
With less than 500 on type you'd need to do a full type rating course of 48 sim hours or whatever, but could still get an ATPL at the end.
Less than 500 multi crew and you'd need to do a CPL/IR before you could do the type rating course, then get 500 multi crew before you can take the ATPL test. (Unlike Canada there is an ATPL test in a multi crew SIM)
You can find an EASA sim for pretty much any aircraft you can think of. They have electricity and running water too.