Duurstede Castle in Wijk bij Duurstede

You're standing at Duurstede Castle in Wijk bij Duurstede. Look at the two towers. The heavy, square brick one is the keep, the old residential tower. It was built in the thirteenth century by the Van Zuylen van Abcoude family, close to where the trading town of Dorestad once stood. Its walls are two and a half metres thick. The entrance wasn't at ground level but on the second floor. You got in by a wooden ladder, and if trouble came, you simply pulled it away or burned it.