The Witcher: Season One from Hungary to the Canaries

Cintra is the kingdom of Queen Calanthe, Ciri's grandmother, and Nilfgaard's army leads an invasion of it. Principal photography for season one began in Hungary on 31 October 2018, and Fort Monostor and the forest around it stood in for some of Cintra's exteriors. Only some exterior scenes were shot here.

The Battle of Marnadal was filmed in the hills of the Hungarian village of Csákberény. It belongs to Nilfgaard's invasion of Cintra, led by the army commander Cahir, who also hunts Ciri, the crown princess of Cintra. The production names the hills of the village, not a particular field, so treat the pin as the neighbourhood.

Location precision: The production names the village's hills, not a single field; the pin marks Csákberény itself.

Yennefer, the quarter-elf sorceress, has an original home village, and it was filmed at Skanzen, the Hungarian Open Air Museum near Szentendre. The museum was founded in 1967 and is Hungary's largest outdoor ethnographic collection, with eight areas of folk architecture. The same site was used for scenes with Ciri in an area with a windmill.

Visitor guidance: Skanzen is on the edge of Szentendre, about 30 km north of Budapest; plan a half day to cover its eight regional areas.

Aretuza is the academy where Tissaia de Vries, its Rectoress, trains sorceresses, and its graduation ball was filmed in the interiors of the Kiscelli Museum in Óbuda. The building was a monastery in the 18th century. The same location also served for the conclave of the Northern Mages, so two of the show's gatherings of magicians share one building.

In March 2019 production moved to the Canary Islands, starting on Gran Canaria. For Aretuza's exterior, the Tower of the Gull, the crew shot on the islet of Roque de Santo Domingo in Garafía on La Palma and added the tower with CGI, so the castle itself does not exist. Most of episode six was also filmed on La Palma.

Location precision: The islet lies just off the coast; the pin marks the nearby village of Santo Domingo in Garafía.

Scenes of Ciri travelling through the desert were filmed in the Natural Dune Reserve of Maspalomas on Gran Canaria. The dunes cover 404 hectares in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and have been protected since 1987; the sand blew onto the coast when the marine shelf lay dry in the last ice age. The Barranco de Fataga area on the same island supplied other arid landscapes.

Visitor guidance: A protected nature reserve on Gran Canaria's south coast; stay on the marked paths.

Season one finished filming at Ogrodzieniec Castle in Poland. These ruins from the 1300s were the backdrop for scenes with Vilgefortz of Roggeveen and Triss Merigold, and for the Battle of Sodden Hill in the final episode. The castle crowns 515.5-metre Castle Mountain and was never rebuilt after a fire in 1702. Filming wrapped in May 2019.

Visitor guidance: Open to visitors; it is on the Trail of the Eagles' Nests hiking route between Polish Jura castles.