This was a trip report but it got side tracked into something equally as interesting so I pulled the trip report (will repost it) and left the good stuff. The actual trip report didnt gather too many comments so not much lost on that account. The trip report is now at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/montenegro/montenegro-trip-report-ef2dbe8e-3b6b-4cc7-a0c6-c1cc3d3f258e
RobertH, its all yours.
Ha! Stinking views sound wonderful! Have a great tour.
A new winery!
It all sounds so wonderful. Thank you for sharing it all!
Just found this thread... enjoying reading about your trip... and bookmarking for future use.
Dave, one of my favorite places in the world. Beautiful with unbelievably good people. So many sweet little places to explore, so few tourists have found this grand Back Door to Europe.
Helen, you are coming high season. I suggest you find a Plan B with free cancelation and book replacement rooms. If your hotel opens you can cancel the other.
I've been curious about Montenegro since reading the old "Nero Wolfe" detective stories as a kid. He was from Montenegro and described it as the "most dangerous place on earth". Only added to its appeal for me as a kid.
The history of Montenegro is about as messed up and occupied as a history can be. The years during the period of Nero's story Montenegro was Yugoslavia. What better place to surround the character with mystery. Maybe better because I doubt the readers or the author knew a thing about the region. Today we would use a planet in another galaxy.
Here is a strange one. Montenegro is not in the EU, not in Schengen, not in the Eurozone; however the currency adopted by the government is the Euro. When their banking system got in trouble they just told the Eurozone, like it or not, we are using your money. The EU objected for a long time and finally quit fighting it, actually being somewhat cooperative now.
So ,did you help to make the Pita? We did and it was fun to try and make it, especially since her mom speaks so little English. Such a great memory. We had a fabulous time with Dijana and wish we could have had more. She had such great insights into what to visit in Montenegro and what to see and do. Did she mention how she arranged an orthodox wedding for us to see while we were visiting the church in Podgorica? That was a nice touch if you ask me. What hotel did you stay at in Virpazar and how did you get there?
⁸That Fly Guy, I've been waiting for you to chime in. I am happy you enjoyed it. I always get nervous with recommendations because we are all different but you discovered why I am confident with Dijana. I couldn't have gotten to a fraction of the places i love in Montenegro without someone local. Heck, I wouldnt have known they existed without someone local.
Up until yesterday afternoon Dijana did the driving. We stayed at the Hotel De Andros which did the job very well. For years she has been saying go to the lake and for years I've been saying, boring idea. Now I want to go back for a week. But next trip, maybe. https://maps.app.goo.gl/K61miPhA1m9XhxSU9
I heard about the wedding. Pretty sweet. Also heard she took care of some arrangements in Rome for you.
I turned down the offer to help with making, but not eating the Pita. This isn't the first time I've had her mother's cooking and each time I want to move in and stay there. What a wonderful woman.
I have one more day here. Thats a week and I havent left the coast, and now you know how much is between the coast and Sarajevo. Thats another week. Maybe September along with some fly fishing in BiH. Too early to plan that.
Oh, happy 25th to you and yours. God bless and keep you safe.
Rex Stout (author of the Nero Wolfe stories) had a little more to go on than just an end of the Earth type remoteness.
from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Wolfe
[snip]"I got the idea of making Wolfe a Montenegrin from Louis Adamic," Stout said, noting that everything he knew about Montenegrins he learned from Adamic's book, The Native's Return (1934), or from Adamic himself.[1]: 278
"Adamic describes the Montenegrin male as tall, commanding, dignified, courteous, hospitable," McAleer wrote. "He is reluctant to work, accustomed to isolation from women. He places women in a subordinate role. He is a romantic idealist, apt to go in for dashing effects to express his spirited nature. He is strong in family loyalties, has great pride, is impatient of restraint. Love of freedom is his outstanding trait. He is stubborn, fearless, unsubduable, capable of great self-denial to uphold his ideals. He is fatalistic toward death. In short, Rex had found for Wolfe a nationality that fitted him to perfection."[1]: 403
"Adamic describes the Montenegrin male as tall, commanding, dignified, courteous, hospitable," I cant argue with that. Its a fair perception from his week in Montenegro. Took me a lot longer to get to a point to say that I cant argue it. Its interesting that stereotypes can hold in a country that is so ethnically diverse and religiously diverse. For instance, I presume by " Montenegrin" he is referencing the ethnicity and not the citizenship of Montenegro, or maybe not? Maybe he says the Albanians, Bosniaks, Montenegrins and Serbs are all the same?
Thank you. This stuff is facinating.
Actually reading about Louis Adamic was more facinating. Very interesting guy, I am looking for one of his books; The Native's Return: An American Immigrant Visits Yugoslavia and Discovers His Old Country which details the week he spent in Montenegro from which he drew his conclusions above. But more interestingly is his political viewpoints, but for those he has written so much I am still trying to decide where to begin.
We want to do a tour of Albania/Montenegro/Bulgaria/Macedonia. How about Jan-Feb-March? Would it be nice?
The Nero Wolfe books the "The Black Mountain" which of course is the meaning of "Montenegro". Set in the commie time, and filled with moments of danger. Great story. Wolfe was characterized as enormously fat, although by today's standard 350+ is not huge, just big.
We were in Bretagne Feb-March this year. As we landed Jan 27, daffodils were all over Paris. We traveled all over Bretagne. It did rain a lot, but otherwise was sweater weather. So we would tour and go to restaurants. We rented a small house for E1000/M.
Sounded like a great trip. Our winter here was pretty mild too.
Set in the commie time, and filled with ...
I thought the books were written in the 1930's when Montenegro was only a region in a larger province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia?
The name comes from Venetian Italian meaning Black Mountain, but in the official language the name is Crna Gora, which means the same. (I like guides so I ask a lot of questions). Stranger is Croatia which is Hrvatski in the native language.
"I thought the books were written in the 1930's when Montenegro was only a region in a larger province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia? "
The wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Wolfe
mentions:
[snip]
Stout published 33 novels and 41 novellas and short stories featuring Wolfe from 1934 to 1975, with most of them set in New York City.
[snip]
Although the Nero Wolfe stories take place contemporaneously with their writing and depict a changing landscape and society, the principal characters do not age. According to a memo prepared by Rex Stout in 1949, Nero Wolfe's age is 56, although this is not explicitly stated in the stories.[a][1]: 383
I suspect they are fascinating reads, for me maybe because I would be looking for the influence of the author and his sources. The character was coined in 1934 by a gentleman who had never been to Montenegro, in part after consultation with a socialist political activist who had spent maybe less than a week, mostly to mountain villages, in the region of Montenegro, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A Kingdom that was a prime target of the socialist revolution movement of the time. None of this is criticism, just makes for a much more fascinating read if the stories reflect any of this. They must because you mention commies and then say it took place in New York. In the 1930’s the socialist movement was alive and well in the US and there might be some parallels with Yugoslavia. I have read that he did express some dissatisfaction with the US government and villainize the Yugoslav royalty in at least one prewar book. For my interests, this is all good stuff. Then his first post war book he discusses Tito, Russian occupation, socialism and communism to some degree. Might be the best read of the bunch (for me) but not having read it (yet) I wont try and characterize it yet. Interestingly this is all written and I am not sure that the author has yet ever visited Montenegro personally. But "Montenegro" is not as relevant as Yugoslavia and socialism. I think a region was needed in the politically turbulent Yugoslavia and this was as good as any. After I have read a few novels and a bit more about Adamic and Stout I may change my opinion and we do this again. Thank you again.
I didn't think it was set in the 30s. I read one book where he takes on J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI and Archie really really doesn't want him to. They didn't like him investigating a case. He said it was because Hoover was a bully and he doesn't bow to bullies.
I'm guessing that was written in the 60s or early 70s after what Hoover and the FBI had done started leaking out. Kevin Costner and Hollywood then papered it over and we got back to cheering on people who decide who the laws did, and didn't, apply to.
This guy never quit writing. The fist was 1934 and the date in the book was contemporary. But he kept this up for 40 years so at some point he had to begin compressing time or your hero would be talking from an old folks home.
"...so at some point he had to begin compressing time or your hero would be talking from an old folks home."
He didn't compress time, he just gave his characters an exception. From that same wiki link:
[snip]
Although the Nero Wolfe stories take place contemporaneously with their writing and depict a changing landscape and society, the principal characters do not age. According to a memo prepared by Rex Stout in 1949, Nero Wolfe's age is 56, although this is not explicitly stated in the stories.[a][1]: 383
"Those stories have ignored time for thirty-nine years," Stout told his authorized biographer, John McAleer. "Any reader who can't or won't do the same should skip them. I didn't age the characters because I didn't want to. That would have made it cumbersome and would seem to have centered attention on the characters rather than the stories."[2]: 49
"RobertH, its all yours."
And that kills the thread. No one wants to read what I write.
"...Wolfe was characterized as enormously fat, although by today's standard 350+ is not huge, just big."
From the same wiki entry, and a continuation of the "characters don't age" comment:
[snip]
"Those stories have ignored time for thirty-nine years," Stout told his authorized biographer, John McAleer...
...According to the same memo, Wolfe's height is 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) and his weight is 272 lb (123 kg). Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, frequently describes Wolfe as weighing "a seventh of a ton" (equivalent to about 286 pounds). This was intended to indicate unusual obesity at the time of the first book (1934), especially through the use of the word "ton" as the unit of measure.
In a single short story written in 1947, Archie writes, "He weighs between 310 and 390, and he limits his physical movements to what he regards as the irreducible essentials."[3][b]
I enjoyed the trip report, James, but was hoping to hear that you dug some old cheese out of the ground to cook with, like Nero Wolfe did when he and Archie went to Montenegro. I think that was my favorite book of the series, and I read them all many times over.
I'm glad you went there and it sounds like it was a good trip!
ETA: Robert, I just realized you were the Nero Wolfe fan. I do remember Archie saying once that Nero was around 250 lbs, which does not seem really heavy by today's standards. But it changed from time to time. Wolfe was certainly addicted to good cooking, though, and knew how to cook himself. Do you remember when he dug up the cheese in Montenegro?
Don't remember much about when he went back to Montenegro. Maybe it happened multiple times? I read (some of) the books as a kid.
Just one I remember where he went back, and as a disguise lost all the weight. Archie didn't even recognize the hugely shrunken man with the folds of excess skin. At the end of the book Archie is suggesting he keep at least some of the weight off as Nero heads into one of his gourmet meals and finds out Nero deliberately put on the weight to "limit" the activities he could do. The suggestion was that he would get himself into trouble back in Montenegro if he didn't.
Another fan of Nero Wolfe. I have read all of the books including the "add ons" written about 20 years ago, watched all the Nero Wolfe TV series, and listened to the existing Nero Wolfe radio dramas.
And yes, Montenegro is on the "bucket list." Perhaps this fall.
The radio dramas are available on You Tube as are most of the TV series.
Since this is a travel forum we should talk travel. I can remember three times Nero Wolfe left NY......Montenegro, a ranch (I think Wyoming) and followed Archie to his home town in Ohio. I think there was another but I don't remember where. There were a few trips to upstate NY and Long Island.
Interesting bit of trivia. Wolfe's brownstone was on W. 35th St. in NYC. Numerous addresses were given but 454 W. 35th St. was considered to be the most likely place. Today, that address is an apartment building but the city put up a plaque marking it as the former home of Nero Wolfe.
FrankII you are apparently part of the cult. This inability to seperate the cult from travel is why i split the post. I'm not complaining, as I got drawn into it. But now I am more interested in the author and some of his friends. You know their names had to have been scribbled on that blackboard behind the curtain in Hoover's office.
As for Montenegro, the June trip was so good I am working on the September trip.
The early version PLAN A is Podgorica > Ulcinj > Shkodër, Albania > Ulcinj > the train from Bar to near the Serbian border > Zabljak ot Kolsin (fly fishing and maybe rafting) > Podgorica and home. PLAN B Is continue from Zabljak to Sarajrvo, tgen home. Shkodër and tge train are new, the rest repeats.
But my trip in June was a near perfect first vist tour for my traveling companion. The only change I would have made if we had more time would be to incorporate PLAN A above intto it. 4 days more at a minimum. We just didn't have it. Also ask ThatFlyGuy about his trip. I understand it went pretty well.
I still remember reading how Nero Wolfe and Archie were trekking through the wilds of Montenegro, and Wolfe refused to remove his highly spit-shined shoes because he was afraid he would never get them back on again. Eventually when they made it back to where they were staying, Archie took the shoes off of Wolfe and found that his feet were as plump and pink as they always had been. I think that's when he made dinner for the 2 of them, and found the cheese buried in a hole in the backyard, which is evidently a place that people stored cheese there.
And Frank, I remember when he lost all that weight. I had forgotten about that. Archie was a great character, too, and I loved that he was from my home state.
If anyone is interested in a lesser known series of mysteries written around the same time as the Nero Wolfe novels, check out the series featuring Hildegarde Withers by Stuart Palmer. A blend of mystery, eccentricity and humor.
A few movies were made based on these books but they were mostly terrible and very bad adaptations.
The first book in the series that introduces the recurring characters in the series is the "Peguin Pool Murder" published in 1931.
