The Good Soldier Švejk: Prague to the East

The novel opens in Prague, in the pub U Kalicha on Na Bojišti street, Švejk's local. Its foul-mouthed landlord, Palivec, is arrested by the secret policeman Bretschneider after commenting that flies have left their mark on the portrait of Franz Joseph. The pub is real: it has existed since 1907.

Para el visitante: Find the pub on Na Bojišti street in Prague.

Lieutenant Lukáš is posted to České Budějovice, and Švejk follows him. At Tábor he is led off to the station so a report can be written, and the train leaves without him. The station master orders him to walk to České Budějovice. It is the start of his long march on foot.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks Tábor town centre; the novel's station scene has no exact spot on the map.

Walking to Budějovice, Švejk gets badly lost and reaches Putim, where the local gendarme, Flanderka, takes him for a Russian spy. Part of the story takes place in this village, and in 2014 it unveiled the first Švejk statue in the Czech Republic.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks the village of Putim; the novel names no particular building.

Para el visitante: The village has a Švejk statue, unveiled in 2014.

Lukáš's march battalion waits in the barracks here for the order to go to the front. Švejk, after his long anabasis on foot around Southern Bohemia, is brought to his regiment as a suspected spy and deserter. The city is one of the main settings of the novel.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks the city centre; the novel does not identify a single exact barracks site.

The regiment is soon transferred to Bruck an der Leitha, a town on the border between Austria and Hungary. Švejk is arrested again, this time for an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and a street fight.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks the town of Bruck an der Leitha; the novel's street fight has no exact location.