On the road from Pitesti to Targu Jiu, I noticed it for the first time. We were driving through villages that were essentially rows of houses lined up along the main road – no centre, no village square, nothing that visually defines a village. We wondered why there were no side streets – everyone lived on the main road. But we soon understood why.

We left Bucharest airport heading for Targu Jiu. Crawling through traffic on the motorway, surrounded by nothing — peeling walls, faded signs on neglected houses, and yellow fields of dried-out grass. That divine, romantic Romanian landscape was nowhere to be found in these parts. Just dust carried by the dry southern heat.