Jajce

Jajce first appears in written sources in 1396, though a fortress stood on the hill before that. Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, one of the most powerful Bosnian nobles, founded the town at the height of his power, rebuilt the fortress and carved an underground chapel and crypt as his family's tomb, finished before 1416. As the Ottomans advanced, the Bosnian kings made Jajce their seat. In 1463 the Ottomans took it and executed the last king, Stjepan Tomašević, but held it for only six months: the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus recaptured it and set up the Banate of Jajce, a frontier stronghold that held out until 1527.

Austria-Hungary arrived in 1878, and the Franciscan monastery of Saint Luke was completed in 1885. In the Second World War Jajce was the centre of a large area held by Tito's partisans, and on 29 November 1943 it hosted the second session of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, which laid the foundations of the federal state. In Yugoslav times that made it a popular destination.

The 1990s war hit hard. When the town fell to Bosnian Serb forces in 1992, a column of 30,000 to 40,000 civilian refugees stretched 16 kilometres towards Travnik under sniping and shelling, and by November 1992 the pre-war population of 45,000 had shrunk to several thousand. Bosnian Croat forces retook Jajce in September 1995 after its Serb population had been evacuated. Floods from the damaged power plant upstream eroded the waterfall. Since the war the old houses facing the falls have been restored, and the walled town is on UNESCO's tentative list.

Jajce's identity rests on its layered past. The Roman Mithraeum, the medieval royal fortress and catacombs, the church that became Sultan Suleiman's Mosque and the Franciscan monastery all stand within a short walk of each other, and the whole ensemble of walled town, waterfall and outlying monuments is protected as a National Monument. Before the war people of all three communities lived here, and Bosniak refugees returned in 1996.

The town also carries a strong place in Yugoslav memory as the place where, in 1943, the AVNOJ decided that Yugoslavia should be a federal state, and the AVNOJ session was the main reason for its popularity as a destination in socialist times. Today the draw is the waterfall and the walled town, and tourism has restarted, with tens of thousands of visitors a year in a municipality of about 25,000 people.

Life outdoors centres on the rivers and the lakes upstream, where people swim, fish and walk in summer, and around the cafés of the town centre. Sights are small and often run by a single keyholder, and the atmosphere is unhurried.

About 7,200 people lived in the town itself at the 2013 census, and about 27,000 in the wider municipality of villages around it, a sharp fall from the pre-war population. Jajce lies in the Central Bosnia Canton of the Federation, on the crossroads of the roads to Banja Luka, Mrkonjić Grad and Donji Vakuf, and much of daily life is lived along the main road through the centre and in the newer districts on the hills around the old town.

The economy is small. Hydroelectric power on the Pliva, small businesses, public services and a growing tourist trade of guesthouses, cafés and restaurants provide work. The restored houses facing the waterfall were part of a heritage project backed by UNESCO and a Swedish organisation, and the bid for World Heritage listing remains a local hope.

The day follows the familiar Bosnian pattern of coffee mid-morning and in the evening, and summer weekends at the Pliva lakes.

Jajce eats as central Bosnia does. Ćevapi, made from minced beef, are grilled and served five to ten at a time in somun flatbread with chopped onion and kajmak, a creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream, and grill houses are found throughout the centre. Pies made with thin, flaky dough are the everyday cheap meal, from burek to sirnica with cheese and zeljanica with spinach.

Home cooking leans on stuffed peppers, sarma, grah, a bean soup, and goulash, with the Ottoman bey's soup, begova čorba, of chicken and vegetables served at festive occasions. Sweets include baklava and tufahija, a whole stewed apple stuffed with walnuts.

The restaurants and cafés along the main street of the centre, one with a terrace over the river canyon, are where most visitors eat. Bosnian coffee, made from very finely ground beans and served unfiltered, ends a meal, and rakija, made from plums or apples, is the spirit.