Travnik, Bosnia

Travnik sits in central Bosnia and Herzegovina along the Lašva River, roughly 90 kilometers northwest of Sarajevo. A medieval fortress built on a hilltop above the old town still overlooks a core of Ottoman-era mosques, clock towers, and madrasas dating to the 15th and 16th centuries. From 1699 to 1850 the town served as the seat of the Ottoman governors of Bosnia, which left behind two consulates and a layered architectural record. Nobel Prize-winning author Ivo Andrić was born here in 1892, and his childhood home now operates as a museum tracing his life and the setting of his novel "Travnik Chronicle." Local kitchens specialize in ćevapi and a salted cheese known as travnički vrnjača, sold from the lanes around the Sulejmanija Mosque.