BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — As a tour guide in one of Europe's top travel destinations, María José Martínez constantly takes busloads of tourists to an overlook in Barcelona to gaze upon one of Spain's most enchanting skylines.

But instead of being wowed by the Mediterranean blue and the sandcastle-like spires of Antoni Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia basilica, recent clients have been unnerved by the sight of smoke rising from smoldering street barricades set aflame by Catalan separatists.

Martínez is one of the roughly 50% of Catalonia's 7.5 million residents who polls and recent elections show are opposed to the wealthy region's separatist movement, which has provoked Spain's worst political crisis in decades. She and others say they are increasingly concerned with the violent turn that the separatist movement has taken after almost a decade of exclusively peaceful protests.