Driving in Germany in Feb

Assuming you stay on the Autobahn most of the way you won't have any problems, they keep them pretty clear. If you do get caught in a snowstorm the roads can get bad until they're cleared though.

You may not even see any snow until you reach southern Bavaria. My experience is that snow removal on Belgian roads isn't very effecient, but most of the country rarely experiences significant snowfall. Outside of southern Bavaria and some of the mountainous areas elsewhere, heavy snow accumulation isn't too common in Germany either. The few times I have experienced more than a few centimeters of snow accumulation, the roads were pretty well clear once the storm ended. I've only encountered black ice on residential streets.

Gary, If you're renting the car in Belgium and dropping in Germany, you may face HUGE extra charges. I can't recall if it's required, but you may need to buy the highway tax Vignette in Germany. Happy travels!

Don't worry about street conditions in Germany. We're pretty good at handling those - every year. Make sure the car you rent is equipped with winter tires (although all of the cars from the big agencies do come with it anyway) and the green eco sticker (again, 99% of the rental cars come with it anyway)... And yes, cross-country one-way rentals are an unneccesary expense. The problem, however, is that the freeway route from Brussels to Germany passes Dutch terretory in between. The strip where Belgium borders Germany is rural only. So maybe a short train ride from your last Belgium to your first German town might make sense.

"The problem, however, is that the freeway route from Brussels to Germany passes Dutch terretory in between. The strip where Belgium borders Germany is rural only." Not really. E40 in Belgium becomes A44 by Aachen, right on the border. Liege is about a 15 minute drive from the border, and Verviers and Eupen are even closer.

So according to Tom you drop your car in Liege or Eupen (provided they have a car rental station) and then walk to Aachen? Most likely not. So we're back to the idea of taking a train from the last good Belgium city to the first good German one... And sorry, I wasn't reading any previous comments to your post, Gary, but of course there never has been the requirement of a freeway toll sticker in Germany and there still won't be any in 2013. (Whether or not Germany might introduce freeway tolls in 2014 or 15 remains to be seen after our general elections in September of this year. That may or may not come hand in hand with the introduction of a general speed limit on our freeways. So do come to Germany in 2013 if you want to experience the real, raw and genuine Autobahn!) ;-)

No vignettes, no tolls. says the man from Ansbach. What about the Umweltplakette?

"So according to Tom you drop your car in Liege or Eupen (provided they have a car rental station) and then walk to Aachen" No, they can take one of the frequent trains from Liege to Aachen, Köln, or take one of the twice daily Deutche Bahn ICE's all the way to Frankfurt, without even transferring. Or they could even take said ICE all the way from Brussels. PS- I take this same route about twice a month, either by train or car, so I'm not pulling this out of my rear end...

But unless it's actually registered in Germany, a car rented in Brussels wouldn't necessarily already have the required eco sticker, correct?

Since the German eco sticker doesn't really make any (common) sense it only exists in Germany and only cars registered in Germany come with them right away. People from other countries wishing to visit a German inner city can obtain them online from that city's website. It's all just red tape. It was meant to reduce the particulate matter emmission in conglomeration areas. But only Diesel cars (51% of all German cars) are required to carry that sticker, even though the load regular engines produce is probably even higher (thanks to successful lobbyism by Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen and Co. there is no official study available so far). So yes, a rental car with a Belgian license plate is not likely to carry that sticker.

It's an interesting issue. I have rented in France before (French registered car) and then drove all over Germany and Austria before returning to Paris. Of course, I needed the vignette in Austria, but this was before the eco sticker regulation was in effect in German cities, so no worries about driving in the bigger cities at the time. What about now? Wouldn't I risk a €40 ticket in a city like Munich if I did this same thing today? Can a renter with a car from another country even obtain an eco sticker on the fly? It's not like the Austrian vignette, where you can just pick one up anywhere. I don't think foreign cars or renters of foreign cars are somehow exempt.

I really don't know the rules for foreign-registered cars, but for German cars, the restricted zones are for the most part only found in areas of certain large cities. Oddly, which sticker your vehicle receives depends on the type of engine, not the results of individual emission testing. The only vehicles I see with the yellow and red Feinstaubplakette are older automobiles and tractor trailers. Pretty much every recently constructed car seems to qualify for the green sticker, so if you rent a car in another country, it would almost certainly qualify for the green Feinstaubplakette.

Thanks for all the great advise. I think we have decided to take the train to Frankfurt and then rent the car and do day trips out of the city to the areas we want to see, most are within 2 hours of Frankfurt.