The short version
A Christmas market evening in Craiova is one of the cheaper ones in Romania, and the gap is widest on accommodation rather than on mulled wine. Entry is free; what you spend is food, drink, rides and a bed.
A realistic evening for two adults, no accommodation: two mulled wines each, something hot to eat, one sweet thing to share. In Sibiu or Bucharest the same evening costs noticeably more, and the difference is not quality — it is what the stallholders can charge.
Checked October 2026. The 2026 stall prices were not published when we wrote this, because they never are in advance — stallholders set them and the city does not publish a tariff. The figures below are what the 2025 edition charged, which is the best available guide and explicitly not a promise. Treat them as a planning range and expect a modest rise.
Free, and worth knowing it is free
- Entry to the market. There is no gate and no ticket.
- The lights and the themed installation. The whole point of the thing, and it costs nothing to walk through.
- The New Year's Eve party on 31 December, held inside the market. See Revelion in Craiova.
- Piața Mihai Viteazul, Calea Unirii and the walk between the zones.
If your budget is genuinely tight, a Craiova market evening can cost nothing at all and still be worth the trip. That is not true of every market in the country.
Places in this piece
What you will actually spend on
Mulled wine is the unit of currency at any Romanian market, and the one price everyone checks first. Craiova has a small advantage here: Segarcea is twenty-nine kilometres south, so the base wine in the pot tends to be better than at markets that truck theirs in.
Hot food — grilled sausages, pork with polenta, langoși, sarmale. One substantial plate per person is usually enough, because you will also eat something sweet.
Sweet things — kürtőskalács, cozonac, doughnuts. The kürtős queue is the longest at any market and moves faster than it looks.
Rides and attractions for children are the line item that surprises people, because each is small and they add up. See the market with children for how to cap it.
Full detail on what each dish is, in what to eat at the Craiova Christmas market.
Accommodation is where the money goes
This is the part worth planning, and the part where Craiova's early opening gives you a lever nobody else offers.
Rates are at off-season levels until 13 November and jump on opening day. Between the 13th and about the 25th the market is fully running while the rest of the country has not started, so you get the season at close to the pre-season rate. After that, and especially around the 1 December national holiday and the last two weekends before Christmas, prices are at their annual peak.
The practical rule: book before the opening date, not after it. Details and which part of town to choose in where to stay for the market, and the general picture in where to stay in Craiova.
Remember the tourist tax, charged per person per night and collected by the property rather than included in the online rate.
Where to stay nearby
Live prices and availability on a map centred on this exact spot — hotels, apartments and hostels, so you can judge the walk from here rather than guess from an address.
Bookings made through this map earn us a commission. Your price is unaffected.
Getting there and parking
From Bucharest, the train or the car — roughly 230 km. Costs and timings in Bucharest to Craiova.
Parking is the one that catches people out in December, because the streets nearest the market are closed or full. There is a sensible answer and it is in getting to the market and where to park.
Once you are in the centre you need no transport at all — see getting around.
How Craiova compares
Against Sibiu and Bucharest, Craiova is cheaper on every line: food, drink and especially the bed. It is also smaller, which cuts both ways — less to see, but no forty-minute queues.
The comparison in full, including which one to pick if you can only do one, is in Craiova or Sibiu for the Christmas market.
Three ways to spend less
Come in the second half of November. The single biggest saving available, and it costs you nothing in experience — the market is identical, the crowd is smaller.
Come on a weekday. Stall prices are the same but accommodation is not, and the difference between a Tuesday and a Saturday in December is large.
Eat one proper meal off-market. The market is for mulled wine and something in your hand; a sit-down dinner is better and cheaper two streets away. See where to eat in Craiova.
For the wider picture of what things cost in this city, year-round, see prices.
Why there is no official price list
This surprises people who expect a city-run market to publish a tariff, so it is worth explaining.
The stalls at Craiova's market are let to independent traders, and each sets its own prices. The city organises the space, the build and the programme; it does not fix what a cup of mulled wine costs. That is also true of Sibiu and Bucharest, and it is why every page you will find quoting an exact 2026 figure in October 2026 is either reprinting last year's number or inventing one.
What we can tell you honestly is the shape of the spend — which items exist, which ones add up, and where the real money goes — and the date we last checked. That is the standard we hold every price on this site to, including on the prices page and on the Oltenia day trips.
A note on cash
Card payment at Romanian market stalls has improved a great deal and most traders now take it, but coverage is not universal and a queue moves faster with cash. Bring some, in small notes. The same applies to the rides, where the operators are separate businesses again.
