Hanseatic Cities Path

From Deventer to Olst &
Part F Olst

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Winter Wonderland from Deventer to Olst

Due to the announced strikes in regional transport, we were not planning to walk the Hanseatic Cities trail this week. But because of the weather forecast, we wanted to venture out. We could avoid regional transportation when we walked two shorter hikes, from Deventer to Olst and the Olst round trip.

We got up early the following day and were at Deventer station at half past eight. The sun had just risen, brightly coloring the park in front of the station. We quickly walked to the IJsselkade and noticed a piece of the old wall. We walked out of Deventer via the quay and saw the “winter wonderland” floodplains of the IJssel.

Again, we wandered through stunning estates. On the Keizersrande estate, we saw Hotel Gaia, also known as the Nieuw Rande estate and formerly the residence of the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. The IJsellandschap foundation owns the estate and castle De Haere. The estate’s park contains a fake ruin and the largest sundial in Benelux. Castle Groot Hoenlo Olst is now an apartment complex and is closed to the public.

Day Walk, Part F, Olst.

In Olst, we started with the circular walk, stage F. A cyclist appeared to whistle to her dog. However, two swans came flying in from afar; they knew they would be fed again.

We did not get our cup of coffee in Boskamp; the restaurant on the route was closed. Instead, we sat on a bench before the church and ate the homemade lunch we had taken with us. Fifteen minutes later, precisely at twelve o’clock, we were walking again.

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The country house Spijkerbosch dates from 1611 and was renovated by private owners in the sixties. The park and gardens of the estate have also been beautifully restored. The agricultural and forest area near Nijendal was originally a small-scale agricultural and forest area. The Zoogenbrink farm, located in the area, was restored to its original state in the 1980s. So this is what the farm and this area looked like about three hundred years ago!

Around 1300, the Hengforden site was already managed by a collective of farmers and used for agriculture and scrub forests. Now I understand why open meadows and forests alternate in this area. Also, since 2002, the historical landscape from the Golden Age has been recreated; the Hanzebos with open, swampy areas of meadows, thickets, and pools.

At Landgoed De Haere, we are once again in familiar territory. We walked a second time along remnants of the IJssellinie, the since 1989 obsolete defense system implemented after WWII during the Cold War to defend against an attack from Russia. I never imagined that almost 35 years later, we again need defense systems to protect ourselves against the same aggressor.

However, we detoured twice: Near the Groot Hoenlo estate, now following the trail in its park. We also took a different route into the center of Olst. It allowed me to take beautiful pictures of both the estate and the church in Boskamp, where we had lunch a few hours earlier.