The German towing maximum speed is 80kph (roughly 50mph) and I think that is now an EU standard. It is possible to get certified to tow at 100kph - but it would cost about €70, take over 2 hours to have the trailer tested and do the paperwork, the test centres only open weekdays (and mostly mornings) so is basically not worth bothering with if you don't live there!

It's a good point about route planners, both Google and Bing give similar times but neither say what they are based on, you'd have to add up the mileages and work it out from the speed.

But speed limits are only part of the equation - nobody says you will achieve them anyway. In UK people think of German motorways as having no speed limit (not true) and being a shining example. In reality they often have massive traffic jams during the peak or when something goes wrong (and at their top speeds, when they go wrong they do it big time!). Friday and Sunday PM can be bad especially if they are start/end of school holidays.

The journey from Calais to Travemunde (presumably the ferry?) takes you through the Ruhr and skirts Hamburg so the time of day and day of the week could make a big difference to journey times. And if you're tied in to the Baltic ferry schedule you'll have to be careful. I'd allow 12 hours and even then I'd not be certain of getting a break.

Many thanks for that Steve. Having already booked the ferries to Calais and from Travemunde, got into a bit of panic. 0045 arrival at Calais, 1645 departure from Travemunde. I hope we shall be ok with that. It will be flasks in car and very quick comfort stops. I hope Hamburg early afternoon will be kind to us.

that looks like a good time to travel. You ought to be well clear of the Belgian, Dutch and Ruhr bottlenecks before the morning peak. In fact you're in danger of getting ahead of yourself and running into heavy traffic around Bremen. I found a link to a German motorway services directory http://www.rast.de/index_en.php . I reckon that if all goes to plan you should be around Munster by 07:00, maybe time for a break once on the A1 (Münsterland Ost). If you have an hour there you'll be at the complicated bit around Hamburg before noon and Travemunde by 14:00. And then you can sleep!

Google's shortest route involves the Antwerpen ring road, if you do that it would be an idea to have a good diagram as Belgian direction signs can get a bit iffy. In the south of Belgium Antwerpen will be signed as Anvers (if at all) although Google's route skirts the French speaking area.

Don't forget, just because you're limited to 80kph in Germany the cars coming up in the left lane will be doing a lot more if the motorway is dry and clear (the noise a BMW 5 series makes at those speeds is terrifying!). Make sure your mirrors can see clearly what's happening on the left side.

Steve - Thanks for the advice. We got on ok apart from around Eindhoven (maps in satnav not updated and confused everything) but we got to Travemunde around 14.30 which gave us plenty of time before check-in. What a lovely ferry! We could take the dog with us in the cabin. I thoroughly recommend this ferry with only about a dozen private cars and the rest lorries. For the journey home we also drove through the night and ended up hours early at Calais (blame hubby who wanted to get past Eindhoven a.s.a.p.). We had to wait about 4 hrs to get an earlier ferry back to UK unless we wanted to pay an extra £70 (which we didn't want to do) but it was ok. Had a meal on the ferry (P&O) which was not nearly as nice as the breakfast buffet on the "Nils Dacke" ferry between Germany and Sweden. All told, we did just over 3000 miles in the 5 weeks we were away. Enough travelling for me for a while.

By the way, we had fabulous weather in Sweden with Mediterranean temperatures (up to 27 C in the shade).

Many thanks again Steve.

Bit ironic about Eindhoven being wrong in satnav - it's home to Phillips, one of the worlds biggest consumer electronics companies!!

The Baltic ferry fleet is a whole different game to cross channel but they've got the time which the Calais services don't. If you ever head to or via Germany again again try the Dunkirk or Ostend ferries, the crossing is a bit longer but it's less of a stampede and it cuts the driving down to compensate.