And finally, dont forget that you have to enter/leave a country through a customs airfield and you should call that field and ensure that the know in advance you are coming.
This is not true. That is only required if you leave/enter the Schengen zone. Unless the country has some specific rules, you won't need an international customs airport.
This can save you a lot of money, since small airports are generally much more cheaper then the big international ones (depending on the country).
Regarding the AIP: read the "VFR" part of it. This is normally max 5 pages.
Register at eurocontrol (free), you can find almost every European AIP online:
EUROCONTROL - The European AIS Database: Introduction to EAD Basic - Home
Don't worry to much about VFR approach plates. Unless its legally mandatory (don't know if it is, you should look that up), it might help to "create your own" chart starting from some published ifr chart, or some google earth image, or just your normal VFR chart. It might sound spooky, but in practice for VFR flights, you really don't need approach plates. Even more, if you fly to East european countries, like Romania (perhaps Croatia), you'll see that jeppesen doesn't have vfr approach charts, so they don't even exist. The same goes for small almost private airfields. As long as you read the AIP for that particular airfield, or call them and ask for special instructions. And if they have special remarks, big chance that it's also published on their website.
But, as I said, check if you need to have them with you legally!