I am planning on doing a tour of Europe as soon as the weather allows, the journey is Forfar, Lydd, Leverkusen, Prague, Venice, Milan, Cannes, Montpilier, Bordeux, Cherbourg, Blackpoo,l Forfar (granted Forfar does not sound as grand as the rest, but hey ho) I have made up a flight plan in skydemon in segments, my choice of fields have taken into consideration the following:
*Large enough and towered that the controllers speak English and have Avgas.
*But not to large that I can limit the “handling fees" and hopefully wont get charged like a wounded buffalo for the landing fees or mixing it up to much with the big boys.
*Avoided for the most part the Alps and mountainous terrain.
I have spend many hours pouring over the plans and have tried come up with a route to that is a good compromise between terrain, airspace and sights worth seeing and feel I am getting to the end of the planning part and wonder if anyone would throw me some tips/advice bearing in mind that I have done several spamcan trips from the west to east coast of the US but have never flown on the continent so if we could gear the points to flying in Germany, Czech, Italy and France etc and any pitfalls i should plan for. I,d appreciate it
I've even on occasion been able to book a non cancellable rate on the day and cancel my more expensive rate ;)
Bring cash for fuel. On certain occasions you might not be able to get fuel without cash. Less likely at bigger airports, but not unknown.
Speak slowly on the radio. English is not their first language, and you'll get a much better service if you speak slowly and clearly....especially the call sign which habit will make you say fast ;)
Build in plenty of non-flying days. It's a pitty to spend so much money on flying over a country and not actually get time to see the country from the ground. My best flying holidays have been those which I had most time between flying days.
Know that Gazol (not sure how it's spelt) is Diesel or JetA1 in French! I've been offered it once or twice instead of Avgas ;)
In France and Germany don't spend too much time trying to avoid airspace. Just ask (slowly and clearly) and you'll probably be let through with minimum of fuss.
Colm
Ps. If you're having difficulty finding airfields that are big enough to have ATC in English and services you require, but not too expensive, try looking at the Ryanair route map. The tend to go to cheap airports!
It's not a 100% sure fire policy, but it have a good chance of making your search quicker!
Colm
Where in Prague? Avoid LKPR (no ryanair anymore, expensive, slot mandatory), go for LKVO if you need IFR and town proximity. If just feul stop, take LKBE.
Letnany in Prague
Any international airport (i.e. any airport that shows "Customs" in the airport data) will have ATC that can speak English - well enough to get by, anyway.
As soon as you get away from "Customs" airports you do in theory (and sometimes in practice) need to speak the local language.
The most basic tips I can offer are
A while ago I started writing up some tips for Europe: here.
Also there is a "VFR in Europe" slide presentation here.
VFR in N Europe is generally pretty easy but doing a bit of planning makes the difference between it being smooth, and getting various hassles.
I would also recommend getting the printed charts and not relying on Skydemon 100% 
France and Germany are easier than the UK. I usually call to confirm opening hours but much less PPR rubbish over there. I find accents make 'winging it' harder. In IFR terms if you haven't studied the charts and you get direct XXX, it can make things much harder than than if the fix was said with a familiar accent. Just study the procedures before take off.
Don't know about VFR but I often find the larger airports easier than smaller.
Learn to spell correctly....
Try doing that with an iPad! I usually need 2 or3 post-submission edits on my forum posts for example....
"learn to spell right"
Hey I spelt " France" correctly, anything past that would just be showing off
