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Across the river from place Broglie, place de la Republique is surrounded by vast German neo-Gothic edifices erected during the post-1870 Imperial Prussian occupation, a good example being the main post office on avenue de la Liberte. At the centre of the square is a war memorial showing a mother holding two dead sons in her arms, one German and one French, testifying to the split personality of this frontier city whose inhabitants found themselves fighting, not always willingly, in both Allied and German armies during the war. At the other end of avenue de la Liberte, across the confluence of the Ill and Aar, is the city's university , where Goethe studied. Adjacent, at the beginning of boulevard de la Victoire, are the splendidly Teutonic municipal baths, the Grand Etablissement Municipal de Bains , where you can take a sauna or Turkish bath or just swim. From in front of the university, the wide, straight allee de la Robertsau, flanked by confident fin-de-siecle bourgeois residences, leads to the buildings of the various European institutions: the Palais de l'Europe , home of the Council of Europe; the glass and steel curvilinear European Parliament building , opened in 1999; and Richard Rogers' contribution for the European Court of Human Rights , with its curving glass entrance and silver towers rising to a boat-like superstructure overlooking a sweep of canal. To visit the European Parliament and the Council of Europe you have to book (tel 03.88.17.52.85 and tel 03.90.21.49.40 respectively; free). Opposite the Palais, the Orangerie is Strasbourg's best bit of greenery, and hosts a variety of exhibitions and free concerts. Here the cigognes (storks), which perch on top of most buildings in the town, have their nests. There is also a zoo with small animals, such as monkeys, and exotic birds.
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