My journey from Amsterdam to Ommen

If you look at the map of the Netherlands, you will see, that Overijssel Province is pretty large. It’s located in the central-eastern part of the country, and the population there is 1, 113, 529. The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and it is kind of surprising, that the largest city is Enschede. Overijssel has 25 municipalities in it: Dalfsen, Hardenberg, Kampen, Ommen, Staphorst, Steenwijkerland, Zwartewaterland, Zwolle, Deventer, Olst-Wijhe, Raalte Almelo, Borne, Dinkelland, Enschede, Haaksbergen, Hellendoorn, Hengelo, Hof van Twente, Losser, Oldenzaal, Rijssen-Holten, Tubbergen, Twenterand, Wierden.

Ommen is in between Zwolle and Hardenberg, you may say.

So, we had to go all the way from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to Ommen. We were going to go there by train, and we had to change trains in Zwolle.

When you go downstairs in Amsterdam Airport, there is a train station and so it’s very easy for everyone arriving in Amsterdam Airport to just go wherever they want by train. Or there’s a bus station and taxi rank, too, as I know. You can even lock your baggage downstairs in the airport (you have to pay some money, it depends on how large your locker is) and just go out in Amsterdam and sightsee the city or do whatever you came there for.

We went to buy tickets and then walked down to find the right platform, as there were many platforms and trains to different directions in the whole Netherlands. We got a little scared, if you want to know the truth, as we didn’t really know whether we could choose the right train or just get on some Utrecht or whatsoever train.

After questioning some people and security and airport staff, we finally went to a platform and waited for the train. Then we heard someone mentioning Ommen and turned to him. He was a thin, tall man something like in his late forties or fifties even maybe. He had a bicycle with him and it was kind of a strange bicycle, if you ask me. It had a large white seat, a small mirror to control things behind and there was a hilarious thing on the back of the seat, it said: “2 FAST 4 YOU”. That made me want to laugh. Man, this man had some good humour!

In fifteen minutes or so our train came and we got on it.

There was a thirty minute journey till Zwolle. We left our huge bags in the entrance cabin and went in the cabin, where people sat. It was a double-decker train and I wanted to go upstairs and sit there, but somehow everyone was downstairs and I stayed there too.

Our trip started amusing. It turned out, that the girls thought it was just 15 minutes till Zwolle and they decided to stand there with their baggage, and they were like “it’s just 15 minutes, we can stand here, so what? ” and then, when I told them it was not 15 minutes, but 30, we all agreed, that we should go into the cabin and sit. I sat on a seat for “loners” (yes, that’s what I called it). That was a seat in the beginning of the cabin right on the left and there was a big window above it. I sat there with my red bag, which I had with me in England, too, and I love it very much, and I started looking out the window and taking photos and videos. I couldn’t stop capturing everything, because the Netherlands was really astonishing. It was getting dark and when we got near Zwolle, there were some buildings with great architecture and design, that got me amazed.

At last, we saw “Zwolle" written on the screen in the train and we got off. But little did we know how hard it would be to change the trains with all the baggage and elevators nowhere to be found!

We walked up the stairs all the way to the top and then all the way down, too, then we walked somewhere outside, well, I wouldn’t call that walking, as we were carrying all these bags and oh, don’t forget the backpacks and shoulder bags! We were like jumping and running and walking at the same time, because we could miss the train and who knew, when would another one come, or would our tickets be valid for another one. Well, we did catch the train just in time and we were off to Ommen.

Photo gallery