Yes, Italy has a big (what I call ultralight) scene. They have about 300 strips, just for that. Not on the maps, and presumably with mogas.
Regarding GA, one has to realise Italy is basically Africa when it comes to legal and corporate transparency, and a local, with "connections", can do stuff a foreigner never could. I flew to Sardinia recently and some of the stuff I saw done locally I would have never dreamed of doing. It makes flight planning somewhat interesting.
AFAIK no country south of the Alps/Pyrenees has any real GA. Slovenia (at LJLJ) had some training activity, and most of the GA going down the Adriatic is Germans etc popping over the Alps for lunch
Spain has a bit of GA, but all these places are less than 1/10 of the UK.