BARCELONA, SPAIN: Place de Catalunya is the heart of Spain’s second-largest city. The open plaza is surrounded by trees that offer shelter to those who rest beneath on park benches, weary tourists, the homeless, those sleeping off the lows of too many or the highs of too much.

Hawkers peddle knock-off handbags and Barcelona football shirts while others sell corn to feed the birds — not at “tuppence a bag” as Mary Poppins sang — but at €2 a bag.

Amid all the comings and goings, the sleeping, the gawking and the hawking, there is the clanging of scaffolding and the hammering of building a stage underway.

Vans from media companies from across Spain are preparing their sound and lighting checks, ready for the outside broadcasts that will reach into every Spanish home and to television viewers around the world.

One television reporter, his top half coiffed, suited and tied, his bottom, off-camera half, in scruffy jeans and trainers, walks talking to himself, preparing his lines for an upcoming live report.

It is here, on Sunday, that hundreds of thousands of Catalan separatists will gather to hear their political leadership lament on a referendum than never took place. Or they will hear that despite the neo-fascist efforts of the Madrid government, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, and the Spanish Constitutional Court that declared the vote illegal, those gathered here are witnessing the birth of a new nation.

No one knows right now.

“Yes, I will cast my vote for independence,” 32-year-old Sofia Perez from Girona told Gulf News. “We have our own language. We have our own culture. We are a strong nation with a strong economy. We never belonged to Spain.”

The secretary says that no matter what happens and even if the regional government is suspended or arrested, nothing will take away from Catalonia becoming independent.

“We can never rest until we are a separate nation,” she says.

“Our language is different,” Perez continues, seemingly unaware or oblivious that she carries a fashion magazine printed in Spanish — not Catalan.

As the scaffolding crews continue their work, at least six vehicles — patrol cars and vans with anti-riot steel meshing across their windows — cover just one entrance from Las Ramblas to Place de Catalunya. At every other major artery — the tourist information on the square says that all major roads lead from this spot — there are similar numbers of police vehicles.

The Madrid government has ordered nearly 5,000 extra police from across Spain into the region, to assist the 11,000 local officers here already. No one knows how the police will react if voters attempt to cast ballots. As it is, the Guardia Civil, Spain’s federal police force, have seized more than 10 million ballot papers and charged 14 people with aiding and abetting the illegal referendum.

And no one knows how police will react to the hundreds of thousands of separatists fuelled either on victory or venom.

“Oh, that’s what it’s all about,” Australian visitor Denise Williams tells Gulf News.

“I thought the extra security had to do with terrorism. Why would Barcelona not want to be in Spain anyway?” Her partner agrees, and asks if there’s going to be trouble, will they be safe?

No one knows for sure.

“We hope that the police will allow us to vote,” Perez says. “And we hope that it will be a day of celebration. But we don’t know if there will be violence. It is very worrying.”

She is determined that she will be back at Place de Catalunya on Sunday to join the celebrations.

“It is history,” Perez says.

At a bus stop nearby, tourists are hopping on and hopping off a double decker bus, eager to see the city, its heritage, its history and its architecture.

Most are heading next to see the Antonio Gaudi-designed Sagrada Familia, the large Roman Catholic church on which work first began in March 1882. After 135 years, the work still continues on what is one of the world’s most distinctive buildings. Making history, after all, takes time. And so too does Catalan’s march for independence. No one knows now which will be finished first. By tomorrow, however, the answer should be a bit clearer.

Maybe.