Day 8: Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) –> Hook of Holland (Netherlands)

Today we start the 1,300 km journey back to Dublin. It is unusual for us to be six days in the same hotel on a trip, so we've got a bit more packing up than normal.

Check out and start to load up our car. With a sports car like the 911 Targa – with space at a premium – everything has its storage location figured out in advance.

We soon leave Freiburg behind us and follow the A5 autobahn northwards towards The Netherlands.

With the grime and snow over the past week, we've exhausted our screen-wash and need a top-up.

We stop off at an autobahn service stop and discover that Germany service stations don't really have "free" water available. But they do sell plenty of pre-mixed wash, so we grab 5 litres of that.

Later we stop in for some food, as we skipped the overpriced €60 a-go breakfast at our hotel this morning. There seems to be a light dusting of snow covering much of our drive today.

The weather stays mostly overcast, with some light snow falls.

With some snow falling we decide to stop over in Düsseldorf for some retail window shopping.

And park up with a thin ice layer over our registration plate.

We browse some shops.

Seeing Apple's ridiculous "googles" for the first time in person. They are not on sale yet (if ever) in Ireland.

Leaving the city as darkness rolls in, we grab our last 100 octane top-up, paying a sharp €2.60/litre as we're on the autobahn.

The snow cover extends into The Netherlands.

We make it to the port and are directed straight onto the ferry for our overnight back to the United Kingdom.

Where we settle into our cabin for what the captain tells us will be a mildly choppy crossing.

Stats

Today we did 743 km over 8:52 hours, with an average speed of 84 km/h, consuming 10.3 litres/100 km.