The Amazing Race Dubrovnik Sites

Dubrovnik Trip Report The Amazing Race sites Season 12 Leg 6 — Middle Age Miles at the Pit Stop of The Amazing Race Season 12, Leg 6
(Stone Cross atop Mt. Srd, Dubrovnik, Croatia)

This article is part of our Trip Report – Our Summer Holiday in Dubrovnik and Beyond

Introduction

Middle Age Miles loves The Amazing Race. And Season 12, Leg 6 is one of our all-time favorites. Not because of anything in particular that happened on the Race – in fact, it was average leg with a moderate amount of drama and challenges that were not particularly memorable – but rather, because it introduced us to a spectacularly beautiful city that became a bucket-list destination for us, Dubrovnik.

Unfortunately, Dubrovnik got a big of short shrift on the episode. The 6 teams left in the Race faced air travel challenges getting from Vilnius, Lithuania, to Dubrovnik. Because of this, it was over 17 minutes of air time from a 42-minute episode before the teams even arrived into Dubrovnik. Once they arrived, though, Dubrovnik was quite the sight to behold.

So, once we made it Dubrovnik, we wanted to visit as many of The Amazing Race sites as we could (ok, I wanted to, and Philly happily played along!). We were actually able to visit pretty much all of the sites from this leg of the Race. In this article, we’ll walk through them in the same order as in Season 12, Leg 6.

Finding the Location of the First Clue Box

There wasn’t much detail on the episode about the location of the first clue box the teams needed to find upon arrival into Dubrovnik. We knew that they asked to be taken to the harbor near the Fort of St. Lawrence. (And along the drive from the airport into town, the episode showed several clips of teams remarking on the incredible beauty of their surroundings.)

On the episode, we briefly saw some teams scrambling to find their way down from their drop-off point to the water’s edge. As it turns out, the drop-off point was at the busy plaza just outside the Pile Gate, the western gate in the Old Town Dubrovnik city walls.

*Middle Age Miles sister Cymber getting some cool water at the fountain in the plaza just outside Pile Gate, Dubrovnik*

Tucked away, just around the corner from the plaza, is a small set of steps leading to a narrow-and-winding walkway that takes you to Dubrovnik West Harbor. The path is not well-marked, and it’s certainly not immediately obvious that this is where you’d need to go. When you’re there in person, you can see that this was a nice twist by the Race designers.

*Narrow walkway leading down from the drop-off point to Dubrovnik West Harb*or

Even assuming that you’ve made it to the water’s edge, the location of the clue box was not well-described in the episode. I had worried that we wouldn’t be able to identify it at all. But once we emerged from the walkway at the water, the clue box location jumped out – it had a unique location on a small jut-out point from the walkway, which was instantly recognizable from what we’d seen on the episode.

*Middle Age Miles at the exact location of the first clue box in TAR Season 12, Leg 6*

*Location of the first clue box in TAR Season 12, Leg 6, at night*

*View of the Fort of St. Lawrence, from the first clue box location*

*An even more impressive view of the Fort of St. Lawrence from the first clue box location, in the evening*

Road Block – Find Stone

The clue at the first clue box directed racers to the leg’s Road Block. The task was straightforward – help repair a wall damaged in Yugoslavia’s civil war (the Croatian War of Independence, if you’re in Croatia) by searching through a pile of 150 large stones to find 1 of the 8 stones that fits correctly into a notch in the wall.

The wall was around a small church, identified on Google Maps as Sveti Durad. From the clue box, it required the racers to backtrack slightly along the path they’d just come down. The task appeared to be somewhat physically demanding, as the racer had to pick up the stone, carry it to the wall, and see if it would fit. And especially by the time the last team reached this point, there would only be 3 remaining “good” stones out of a pile of 145. But the episode didn’t show any particular drama at this Road Block, perhaps because of time constraints.

*Sveti Durad, as viewed from the top of the Fort of St. Lawrence, with the “repaired” wall visible between the church and the water*

*Middle Age Miles in front of Sveti Durad, standing near the “repaired” wall*

*Dramatic view of Sveti Durad and the “repaired” wall in the evening, from the site of the first clue box*

When the teams successfully completed the task, the stonemason handed them their next clue.

Route Info – Make Your Way to the Roof of the Fort of St. Lawrence

The Fort of St. Lawrence (Lovrijenac) sits atop a steep bluff, with its base 121 feet above the sea below. Teams were instructed to make their way to the roof of the Fort, which involves another 40-50 feet of climbing once you’re inside the Fort itself.

Once up top, the teams rode a tandem zip line across Dubrovnik West Harbor, down to Fort Bokar. Fort Bokar is a circular outcropping along the Dubrovnik Old Town city wall.

Two other things about the Fort of St. Lawrence:

One, there is an admission fee to enter the Fort. In August 2018, the admission fee was 50 Croatian Kuna per person (about $7.90 at the time).
Two, we don’t watch Game of Thrones, but of course a lot of people love it as much or more than we love The Amazing Race. We learned that the Fort of St. Lawrence serves as the Red Keep on Game of Thrones, which thrilled Middle Age Miles sister Cymber to no end (just wait until you see her in our upcoming article about the GoT boat tour!).

*View from the roof of the Fort of St. Lawrence toward Fort Bokar (the TAR tandem zip line path)*

Middle Age Miles at roughly the departure point for the TAR tandem zip line from the Fort of St. Lawrence to Fort Bokar (the circular fortress sitting just outside the City Wall, closest to the Fort of St. Lawrence)

*Philly showing off on the roof of the Fort of St. Lawrence*

Detour – Short & Long, or Long & Short

Once they reached Fort Bokar, the teams received their next clue – choose between two ways that foreign armies might have tried to invade Dubrovnik, Short & Long, or Long & Short.

*Top of Fort Bokar, the landing spot for the TAR tandem zip line and location of the clue box containing the “Detour” clue (with the Fort of St. Lawrence in the background)*

In Short & Long, the teams had to rappel down the walls of Fort Bokar and then scale a rope ladder to the top of the city wall (this was the Short part). Then, they had to make their way on foot through the streets of Old Town Dubrovnik, to a plaza on the diagonal opposite side of Old Town (the Long part), to find their next clue.

*In Short & Long, the rope ladder portion scaled the Dubrovnik city wall at a height about like you see in this picture behind the umbrellas (the actual climb site was a bit west of this location)*

*We don’t have the best picture showing the confusing streets inside Old Town Dubrovnik, but this view gives you a little idea what the teams would be facing on the walking portion of Short & Long*

In Long & Short, the teams had to do another tandem zip line from Fort Bokar down to the water, swim to a floating platform, then get into a fishing boat and row it around the city walls to the east harbor (this was the Long part). When they arrived at a flagged area in the harbor, they then had to make their way on foot up to the same plaza to the clue box (the Short part).

This panoramic view gives some idea of the rowing path for Long & Short – the teams zip lined down from circular Fort Bekar (center), then rowed around the point to the right, and continued around the point to the harbor on the far side of Old Town

*The marina in Dubrovnik’s east harbor (Old Port), ending place for the rowing portion of the Long & Short Detour*

In the Race, 4 teams chose Long & Short (zip line & rowing), while only 2 teams chose Short & Long (rappel, rope ladder, and find your way across Old Town Dubrovnik on foot). The rowing portion saw its share of drama, including one young couple who came completely unglued arguing on the boat.

The clue box at the end of both Detour choices was located in Trg Oreszja (spelling? I did this phonetically based on pronunciation by Phil and a Race contestant on the episode; I don’t see the name on Google Maps, I can’t find it by searching, and I didn’t see it written anywhere when we were there). This plaza is located just inside the city walls, very near Ploce Gate on the eastern side of Old Town. The plaza overlooks the marina. The clue box was located near the far southern end of the plaza.

Trg Oreszja (sp?), site of the clue box at the end of the Detour – the clue box was located near the notch in the wall at the right edge of this picture; it would have been behind the lady in the pink dress

*Another view of Trg Oreszja (sp?) – in this photo, the clue box would have been located just at the feet of the guy standing on the wall with his selfie stick*

Pit Stop – Stone Cross Atop Mt. Srd

After picking up their clue in the plaza, teams had to exit Ploce Gate, catch a taxi, and travel 4 miles up to the Pit Stop, at the Stone Cross atop Mt. Srd overlooking Dubrovnik.

Street just outside Ploce Gate, where the teams had to catch a taxi to take them to the Pit Stop – unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of the taxi line just to the right – it’s extremely well-marked and was very well-stocked with taxis when we were there, yet teams seemed to have trouble finding a taxi here – in one dramatic scene, you’ll see a team wandering about in the middle of the street here

The taxi portion of these instructions seemed simple, but one team was horribly foiled when the taxi driver wouldn’t let them in his cab because they were wet after rowing. They hailed a random Croatian driver to take them to the Stone Cross on the mountaintop, but Phil was none too pleased about this. He ordered them to go back down and take a “legal form of transportation” back up to the top. This adventure led to the title quote for this episode, the “Cherry on Top of the [Ice Cream] Sundae That’s Already Melted.”

*View of the Stone Cross high atop Mt. Srd, from Old Town Dubrovnik*

Once they were dropped off near the Stone Cross, the teams had to ascend one final set of stairs to reach the Cross and the Pit Stop mat. The stairs were lined with gentlemen in Croatian military regalia. One of the fired a musket when each team ran up the stairs, unfailingly startling the bejeebies out of the racers, which made us laugh every single time (and still does!).

The Pit Stop mat was located just past the Stone Cross in the far left (southwest) corner.

We got a kick out of going to the Stone Cross, ascending the stairs (sans musket-fire), and standing at the actual Pit Stop location. (We actually took the cable car to the top rather than a taxi, which we’ll cover in a later article.) It’s quite a spectacular view from the Stone Cross overlooking Dubrovnik and the Adriatic Sea below. What an amazing location for a Pit Stop of The Amazing Race.

*Looking up the stairs from the road toward the Stone Cross*

*The Stone Cross, from the Pit Stop location*

*Middle Age Miles made it to the Pit Stop of TAR Season 12, Leg 6 at the Stone Cross!*

*Awesome view of Dubrovnik Old Town and the Adriatic Sea from the Stone Cross platform*

We hope you’ve enjoyed our chase along the route of The Amazing Race Season 12, Leg 6 in Dubrovnik half as much as we have. The sights here were truly amazing. This was a wonderful place to experience and satisfy a big item on our travel bucket list.

On Middle Age Miles, we try to visit sites featured on The Amazing Race whenever we can on our travels, and we enjoy sharing our fondness for the Race and love of travels with you. If you also enjoyed this article and/or have something to add to our recap, please let us know in the Comments!

At Middle Age Miles, we love to bring you travel, credit card and points-and-miles information that you can use to help make your travel dreams come true. To see all of our tips and insights, please Like and follow us on social media at:

Facebook: @MiddleAgeMiles
Twitter: @MiddleAgeMiles1
Instagram: @middleagemiles

Please share and re-tweet our posts and tell all of your friends about Middle Age Miles! Thank you!

Middle Age Miles

Helping you live your dreams through travel and points