Entering the Twilight Zone

On our late night return from Bologna the call for Siena came over the loudspeaker and we quickly departed the train. Collectively, our third time at this stop, we knew the routine. Or so we thought. Typical to train stations, we had to cross under the tracks, which meant going down a flight of stairs, turn right and then straight ahead to the end of the underpass, back up the steps to the train tracks and out to the sidewalk. There we would find the usual line up of taxis awaiting patrons. 

Only that is not what we found… (In case you are not already tuned into the background sounds… imagine the eerie theme song to the Twilight Zone softly setting up the scene.) Unexpectedly, rather than steps leading back up to the train tracks, we exited the underpass onto a rolling sidewalk leading us upward which lead to another, even steeper rolling sidewalk. Hmm a different way to the street we wondered?

The top of the moving sidewalk led to a double door suddenly opening into a brightly lit food court - like those you see in a shopping mall. A steep escalator in the center of the court went up and out of sight. Di dove siamo?! Where are we? was the question of the moment! Did we get off at the wrong stop! But no… they called out Siena, we saw the sign and it was obviously the last stop. Not knowing what else to do, we continued our upward climb on the escalator. (Remind you of Paris Joelle?)

Retracing Our Steps During Regular Business Hours

At the top of the third escalator we found ourselves at the base of yet another steep escalator in the center of what appeared to be an underground mall. We left the stores behind us and continued upward with each escalator appearing steeper than the last.

  

We continued up higher and higher with no signs of the outdoors. Were we underground? Where were we going? We had absolutely no idea until the top of the tenth escalator finally brought us out onto the street. There was our long desired taxi zone, but without the benefit of taxis. Other than the fact that all the signs were written in Italian, we had no idea where we were! If we were in Siena, we were outside the city wall. 

Retracing our steps.... in the daylight

On the other side of the street a small ristorante showed signs of life, so across we went to see if we could discover where we were, and more important, how to get where we wanted to be. Inside Annette asked a blond hair, blue eyed girl “You don’t happen to speak English do you?” She did and she also knew where to direct us.  “Where are you from?” she asked. “California,” we said. “Me too,” she said. “What part? we said. “The far north,” she said. “Us too,” we said. "Where?" someone said. “Redding,” we all said.