"Travnik : A Pleasant Day-out from... " a Travnik Travel Page by travelife

Travnik is within a easy reach of Sarajevo and wel-connected by bus. It has a very pleasant town-centre which is divided by a spring and quite a few spring-side cafe. On the top of the hill there is moderately preserved Ottoman castle which is under reconstruction. neighbouring this castel there are also some traditional houses on the top of the hill. A very good view is possible from this fort. In the town centre there are couple of good sights namely, many colored mosques, birth-place of Ivo Andric, first Nobel laurett author in Serbo-Croatian. Browsing internet and cafe menu are cheaper than Sarajevo.

This is one of the few sizable town within Bosnia which has been spared from war devastation, though Muslim and Croat fighters fought in the neighbouring hills. The town is in Muslim hands today.

Travnik is situated on the Laiva, a left-hand tributary of the Bosna, 44 m. by rail N.W. of Serajevo. Pop. (1895) about 6000. Travnik is mainly built round a steep mass of rock, crowned by an ancient citadel. Several mosques, palaces, arcades and a fine bazaar, left among its narrow lanes and wooden huts, bear witness to its former prosperity, and there are some good modern barracks and public buildings.

The old name of Travnik, was last used in the 18th century. It is likely, from the number of Roman remains, that Travnik stands near the site of a Roman colony. It was a stronghold of the Bogomili during the 15th century, but its period of greatness dated from 1686, when the downfall of the Turks in Flungary caused the removal of the Bosnian government from Banjaluka, which was dangerously near the Hungarian frontier, and the Turkish governors, officially styled valis of Hungary, ruled in Travnik from 1686 to 1850.