Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883; here he went to school and studied at the city’s university, obtaining a doctorate in law. He worked and wrote in Prague too; here was his circle of friends, his intellectual sphere.

Franz Kafka’s birthplace was a simple, two-storey building on the north-west side of the Old Town Square, at the edge of what was then still the Prague ghetto. Franz Kafka was born here on 3 July 1883, the first of the young Hermann and Julie Kafka’s six children.

Karlsbad is very pleasant. This pronouncement on Karlsbad [Karlovy Vary] was made in the knowledge of Marienbad [Mariánské Lázně], which Kafka had just visited for the first time and found incredibly beautiful. As a result, he would soon suggest to Felice Bauer that they spent their planned holiday together in the spa resort.

It would take almost eighty years for a monument to Franz Kafka to be erected in his native city of Prague. On 4 December 2003, the Franz Kafka Society marked his 120th birthday with the unveiling of a cast-bronze statue, 3.75 metres high, weighing 800 kilograms. Hundreds of Kafka enthusiasts took part in the festivities, not a few of them wearing black suits, hats, and coats.

In autumn 1907, Josef Suchánek from Reichenberg [Liberec] opened a café near the then Prague State Railway Station. Although the Arco soon became the haunt of major artists including Max Švabinský, Bohuslav Kubišta and Friedrich Feigl, it is better known as the coffeehouse favoured by Prague’s German and Jewish writers. Willy Haas, Paul Kornfeld, Hans and Franz Janowitz, Rudolf Fuchs and Otto Pick all socialised here.

In November 1913, the Kafka family moved into a four-room flat on the fourth floor of the Oppelt House. We do not know why they moved to the Old Town Square from the elegant House at the Ship on the banks of the Vltava. Hermann was sickly by that point, and may have been attracted by living closer to his business, which was by then based in the Kinsky Palace, only a few metres away.

The little house at 22 Golden Lane in the Prague Castle complex is probably one of the most famous places associated with Kafka in Prague. In mid-1916, Kafka and his sister came to this picturesque spot to find a writing retreat: “Just for fun, we inquired in the little lane. Yes, a cottage would be available to rent in November”.

Vienna – for the citizens of His Apostolic Majesty, the imperial city was a vibrant centre of power, the hub of a tightly knit political system that was geared towards eternity. That was also true for Kafka although he was not unaware

The New Jewish Cemetery had been laid out in the late nineteenth century and originally designed for around 100,000 graves; it was one of the largest cemeteries in Prague.