The short version
The Christmas market sits in the middle of Craiova's pedestrianised centre, which is excellent once you are there and the entire problem before you are. Calea Unirii is closed to traffic through the core, the streets that feed it fill from mid-afternoon at weekends, and the standard December mistake is driving towards the square and hoping.
The rule: park once, on the ring, and walk in. The centre is small — fifteen minutes end to end — so there is no such thing as a parking space that saves you a meaningful walk. There are only spaces that save you forty minutes of circling.
Checked October 2026. Street closures and any temporary arrangements for the 2026 edition had not been published when we wrote this; the city has announced them in November in previous years.
If you are coming by car
From Bucharest, the A1 then DN65/DN6, about 230 km. Full comparison of train, car and plane in Bucharest to Craiova.
Where to leave it. Aim for a paid car park on the approach rather than a street space near the square. The streets immediately around Piața Mihai Viteazul are either pedestrianised, closed for the market build, or so contested that you will spend longer looking than walking.
The practical approach is to stop at the first legitimate paid space you find within about a kilometre of the centre and walk the rest. In a city this size, a kilometre is twelve minutes.
When it matters most. Weekend evenings from the end of November, the 1 December national holiday, and the last two weekends before Christmas. On a weekday afternoon in mid-November — the market opens on the 13th, well before Sibiu's and Brașov's — none of this is a problem at all, which is one more argument for coming early in the season.
More on driving and parking in the city generally: where to park in Craiova and getting around.
Places in this piece
If you are coming by train
This is the better option in December, and it is underused.
Craiova station is at Piața Constantin Brâncuși, about twenty-five minutes' walk east of the market or a few minutes by taxi. You arrive in the centre with no parking problem, no closed streets and no reason to stay sober — which matters at a market that sells mulled wine by the litre.
If you are coming from Bucharest for the day, the train removes the single worst part of the trip.
If you are flying
Craiova International (CRA) is about eight kilometres east of the centre on Calea București. Wizz Air flies most of the routes, including London, Madrid, Barcelona, Italy and Germany, which makes a December weekend from abroad genuinely practical.
From the airport it is a short drive to the centre. Arrange it rather than assuming — see the airport guide for the current options.
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.
Once you are in the centre
Walk. Everything is close.
The market's core is Piața Mihai Viteazul on Calea Unirii. Recent editions have also used Piața Frații Buzești and the esplanade in front of the National Theatre as themed zones — five minutes apart on foot, and the walk between them is part of the evening rather than a chore.
If you want to sit down and warm up between zones, the cafés on and around Calea Unirii are thirty seconds away from the stalls, and considerably better value than a second mulled wine.
A December-specific warning
Craiova in December is grey and damp more often than it is snowy. The market is an outdoor standing-around activity, which is a different cold from a walking-around one — a coat that is fine for a city walk will not be fine for two hours beside a stall.
Dress for standing still. The month-by-month weather page has the actual numbers: a December daily high of about 3.5 °C, and more rain than snow.
The cheapest version of the whole trip
Train from wherever you are, arrive mid-November on a weekday, walk everywhere, eat one plate at the market and dinner off it. No parking, no peak accommodation rate, no queue. The full cost picture is in what the market costs, and where to sleep in accommodation for the market.
Taxis and ride-hailing
Both work in Craiova and both are cheap by the standards of the capital. In December the constraint is not availability but the same congestion everyone else is sitting in: a car dropping you two streets from the market on a Saturday evening will take longer over the last kilometre than you would on foot.
The sensible use of a taxi in market season is the leg between your accommodation and the ring, or between the station and the centre — not the last few hundred metres, which are pedestrianised anyway.
Coming for the day from a nearby city
Craiova works as a day trip from several directions, and the market is the reason most people make it.
From Bucharest, about 230 km. A day trip is possible but long; an overnight is far better, and in mid-November it is also cheap. See a weekend in Craiova from Bucharest.
From Drobeta-Turnu Severin or Târgu Jiu, both roughly two hours, which makes an evening at the market a realistic outing rather than a holiday. Those routes and the rest of the region are covered in day trips from Craiova — the same roads run in both directions.
Accessibility
The core of the market is flat. Calea Unirii is a wide, level, pedestrianised boulevard and the square at its centre has no steps, which makes the main zone genuinely manageable with a wheelchair or a pushchair — more so than most Romanian Christmas markets, which tend to be in old towns with cobbles and slopes.
The crowd is the limiting factor rather than the ground. On a weekend evening in December the density between stalls makes a pushchair hard work. A weekday afternoon, or any afternoon in the first fortnight before the rest of the country opens, is a completely different experience.
