🗓️ Essentials
When to visit Craiova
April–May and September–October are the good months. November and December belong to the Christmas market. July and August are genuinely hard — 30 °C and no shade.
Spring — the first good window
April brings a daily high of about 18 °C, 234 hours of sun and everything in leaf. Romanescu is at its best, and it is the right month for the Oltenia day trips, which do their worst work in high summer.
May is warmer still, around 24 °C, with the longest usable evenings and every terrace open. It is the wettest month on paper — 75 mm — but mostly as short afternoon storms.
Summer — the hard months
June hands over: 28 °C and 328 hours of sun, still enjoyable but you start planning around shade.
July and August average a daily high of 30 °C, with July the sunniest month of the year at 358 hours. The centre has almost no tree cover. Mornings and evenings work; the middle of the day does not. See the summer heat.
August is also when the city empties — cheap and quiet, if you can take the temperature.
Autumn — the best month of the year
September is the answer if someone asks for one month: about 24 °C, seven wet days, 242 hours of sun, and the clearest light of the year on the Calea Unirii facades. It is also harvest at Segarcea.
October is September's quieter sibling and better for one thing: Romanescu turns over about three weeks, and because the park is built on slopes you look across the colour rather than standing in it.
Winter — the market changes everything
November is split by a single date. Until the 13th it is the deadest month of the year, grey and cheap. Then the Christmas market opens — about a fortnight before Sibiu, Bucharest and Brașov — and the city fills.
December is the peak of the year in both crowds and price.
January after the 3rd and February are the quietest and cheapest months, cold, grey and often fogbound — and the right time for the museums, with a room to yourself.
Full figures on the weather page; the month-by-month verdicts are at /weather.
