Bologna the city of Gelato

We came to Bologna because it is supposedly the food capital of Italy but the locals we talked to brushed it off and made comments to fact that it's a thing of the past. We tripadvisored it and the top three restaurants were Gelateria's. Luckily we booked a BnB so we had a local brain to pick and she recommended a place we loved.
After arriving and settling in we hit the town. First stop gelato, as you may know we eat a lot of gelato, as in twice a day everyday. I think we have only missed our quota twice. Bologna hands down has the best gelato! We have 5 more cities to try but it's going to be hard to beat. The first place was Funivia and we tried to go back today but it's Monday which is like an extra holy day in Italy, everything is closed.
After gelato we roamed the piazzas where we saw some amazing street performers and joined the Italians in their favorite pastime: window shopping. The saying must come from here because everyone does it, ALL day and night. I think it's partly because stores are only open 5 days and for limited hours since they close in the afternoon for siesta. We then ventured to dinner. I graduated to a 1/2 liter of wine although it was nice at the time I was not feeling 100% this morning. Michael is a wine pro and was whining at tonight's dinner that one glass wasn't enough. We did however learn the difference between tortellini (meat filled) and tortelloni (no meat). Bologna is their birth place.

5/14/12:
Today we tried to take the bus to the city center after a lazy morning but there was sciopero, we had no idea what that was so we walked to the apartment and our host informed us that the buses were striking today until 1630 so she showed us how to get there via our legs which was good since we eat so much gelato :) We got a map from the TI and headed for the sights. There is some big religious event going on at one of the churches but we couldn't figure out what it was. We saw some basilicas a few with a ton of relics, hip bones, skulls, oh and of course we tried another highly rated gelateria it was delicious! We figured our second helping would come from the Funivia but when we arrived it was closed for the day.
Bologna has two famous towers, it's actually a tower and a half as one fell down. We risked our lives and climbed the 498 steps up, it did not seem safe but we came out unscathed. The city used to be filled with 100s of towers as every family felt the need to protect themselves from their neighbors but only about a 100 still stand today which is impressive if you think about how long they've lasted.
Bologna wasn't quite the culinary masterpiece we expected but had many unexpected treats. I'm glad we detoured off our original path for this stop! Tomorrow we move on.

*A very Happy Birthday 30th to Amanda, finally I'm not alone!!

Pics:
- view from the top of the tower, you can see a view of the other remaining towers
- we found Fred Flintstone's couch!
- graduated
- that's the tower we climbed, all 498 steps
- arrival in Bologna waiting for the bus