We're making our first trip to Germany in a couple of weeks and we're trying to flesh out an itinerary based on the idea of landing in Munich, spending a few days there, and then renting a car and heading southeast, then north towards Amsterdam, where we'll fly out and head back home.

Obviously we need a one-way car rental, but less obvious is where we should drop the car off. Looking at a couple of agencies, they all seem to want a fair amount of money to drop the car off in Amsterdam proper; if I leave it in Dusseldorf or Essen it seems like I can save a reasonable chunk of cash (but then pay for train tickets, so yeah, maybe not). Having never done this before -- what's the opinion of the FT hivemind on this?

Separately, if we're thinking about buying a car seat for our seven month old, where would one go about doing such a thing in Munich?

Many thanks in advance!