LONDON -- Trafalgar Square is all things to all people. For out-of-towners and tourists, it is where you have your photograph taken with the National Gallery and the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields as a backdrop, or of you feeding the pigeons or climbing Sir Edwin Landseer's lions. Four of them stand at the base of Nelson's Column, the central feature of the square. (Smaller replicas guard the doors of Mitsukoshi department stores in Japan.)
For Londoners of the past, the square was where they watched public executions. Now it is a focal point of protest and pilgrimage. When the nation has something to celebrate, revelers dance in the icy fountains. If they are angry, they raise their voices to Nelson atop his column.
At all other times it is a place to be avoided, especially in a car. With roads feeding into it from every direction, the square is a massive, unavoidable roundabout in the neck of central London.