I agree. I did Turkey last year (LTBH) with the excellent help of local pilots. The flying would have been easy (ATC down there speak English fine) but the permits etc much less so.

And PPR/PNR/do-you-have-avgas is, I find, the biggest hassle. Not the flying.

I think that due to poor English at airport operations offices, much of southern Europe is just a hassle for so many people, because few Germans will speak Spanish, few Greeks will speak Portugese, etc. But to speak to the airports, this is precisely what you do need, because they are often disorganised and the published data is crap.

Italian/Spanish ATC is often a joke even before you get to their ICAO Level minus 1 English ;) but it actually is not the biggest problem for me. I find a Spanish ATCO who cannot speak English will just ignore you (so leaving no evidence on the tapes) so you make blind calls and fly the filed route etc. and perhaps try the next or previous freq.

However I accept it might be a bigger problem for a pilot flying to small places, as one can do intra-Schengen. I almost never do that sort of flying, as I tend to fly direct to destination out of the UK so a Customs airport is a must.

It does but flying would be unworkable if ATC did not speak English, at airports capable of receiving foreign traffic.

number for the Czech Republic as of november 2008:

• 1553 PPLs
• 743 CPLs
• 572 ATPLs
• 3650 microlights
• 3538 glider pilots

Most people's second language? Yes, agreed, around Europe at least - and only for those that have SOME second language. There's plenty of French, Spanish (and Russians, I am told) who only speak their native. Not to mention UK'ers, of course.

"One thing is striking, though, as one travels South: less and less glider activity."

Don't know where you fly to, Jan, but I can tell you (as I have a glider based in southern French Alps) the whole Alpine area from Austria in the east through to S. Germany, Switzerland, N.Italy and France is extremely busy with gliders from March to October. Italy it's mainly in the north and central area. Greece - not much as land-out possibilities are limited. Spain - a lot in the Pyrennees and NW of Madrid as well as other locations.

Trouble is they are all white and you don't see them (!) particularly against the snow line.

Some Figures from Flight Training News
 

I found some statistics from Flight Training News Nov Edition which originate from the UK CAA and also includes (an estimate?) of European GA.

European General Aviation
90,000 pilots engaged in private powered flying
40,000 microlight pilots
20,000 GA aircraft
22,000 Gliders

Trends for PPL qualifications have been dropping since 2003/4:

In 2009, new licences were issued in the UK to about:
700 NPPL + 1750 PPL(A) = 2450 (compared to 3200 in 2004)
280 IMC
700 Night Ratings
30 PPL Instrument Ratings

Age with the most PPLs is 43, and remain steady up to about 50 then tails off.

Licenced airfields in UK: 137
Professional Flying Training Organisations 102
Microlight Schools 107

I wonder what increase we'll see in the number of IMC ratings issued in 2011 before the rules change when EASA takes over - my guess is that many may decide to take this up before the 2012 deadline.

The huge decline in the IMCR issue, over the past decade, is a curious thing; I do wonder what the cause is.

It has been severely slagged off by various characters; maybe that is a part of it.