If you can get to FL140 you should be fine on a nice calm day.
Remember that the claimed ceiling will be achieved only in ISA conditions. In Sep/Oct you should be OK but much of this "summer" I have been seeing ISA+10 to ISA+15 and that knocks anything up to 3000ft off the ceiling.
Flying abroad is no problem and your 180hrs is fine. I was doing trips like this with less time. You just have to get your ducks in a row and do the planning and understand aircraft performance; stuff not necessary if going to say Bembridge
So thoughts were, be above MSA, stay there and have a chat to ATC for some vectors.
That's not a good strategy. For serious flights you need proper navigation which means a decent GPS. ATC will not offer vectors below their minimum vectoring altitude and that is usually a few thousand feet above the general terrain in the Alps. But you need to avoid IMC because of the icing risk; you will not have an escape route via a descent.