When planning a family trip to Montenegro last spring, I found myself telling perplexed friends who knew next to nothing about the Balkan country: “Imagine yourself in Venice, sail down the Adriatic coast, look east and stop before you reach Albania.”

But since President Trump described the country, in a Fox News interview in July, as likely to trigger World War III and Montenegrins as “very aggressive,” the questions have trended from “Where is it?” to “What’s there?”

For starters, there is dramatic natural beauty, including the imposing mountains that wall the coast and inspired 15th-century Venetians to name it Monte Negro, or Black Mountain.