Drakenburg

Look at the Roman numerals carved above the entrance. Decode them and you get 1967. That "medieval" facade is younger than the concrete apartment tower rising behind it. But step inside and you are touching walls and beam layers that date back to around 1300. Drakenburg is almost certainly the oldest surviving house in Utrecht.

The name has nothing to do with dragons. The Van Drakenborch family moved in around 1300 and ran this city for generations: sheriffs, aldermen, mayors, and church canons all at once. They also gave their name to castles in Baarn and Lage Vuursche, where Princess Beatrix still lives today in Drakensteyn.

In 1871, a factory owner named Dirk Willem van Renes moved in and started building ship engines inside these medieval walls. He stamped a three-headed dragon onto every machine plate. By 1899 the neighbors had had enough of the noise and smell, and the factory moved out. The name never did.

After the liberation in 1946, the Chinese Ma family opened one of the first Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands here. Daughter Mia grew up in this castle and later opened ice cream parlor Venezia just across the canal with her husband.