Driving in Mithymna: Limited traffic zone

Mithymna, Greece · Limited traffic zone

Official name Κυκλοφοριακές ρυθμίσεις για την περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση της Παραδοσιακής Αγοράς, της κεντρικής οδού Μιχαήλ Γούτου και του λιμανιού, στον οικισμό Μήθυμνας Δήμου Δυτικής Λέσβου (αποφ. Δ.Σ. 91/2025, ΦΕΚ Β' 4055/28.07.2025)

Not in force in Mithymna right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 12:05 · Europe/Athens

  • Not in force Every vehicle in the Παραδοσιακή Αγορά, the traditional market of Mithymna. The closure runs «1η Ιουνίου έως 30η Σεπτεμβρίου» — 1 June to 30 September. The other eight months fall wholly outside it. Neither end is a split month.
  • Not in force Every vehicle on the central road, οδός Μιχαήλ Γούτου.
  • Not in force Every vehicle at the harbour (το λιμάνι) of Mithymna. Same season as the other two — 1 June to 30 September — and inside it there is no hour at all: «για όλο το 24ωρο». The harbour is closed to vehicles for four continuous months.

🔑 The empty window list on the harbour rule is a statement, not a gap. The act writes «για όλο το 24ωρο» — for the whole twenty-four hours — so `windows: []` asserts exactly what the act asserts. 🚫 It must never be read as "the hours are unknown", and no hour from the market or from Μιχαήλ Γούτου may be copied into it.

🔑 Three areas, three clocks, one season. The market closes from 11:00, the central road from 19:00, the harbour continuously. 🚫 They must not be merged: a driver who reads the market's 11:00 onto Μιχαήλ Γούτου would avoid a street that is open, and one who reads 19:00 onto the harbour would drive onto a quay that is closed.

The market and the central road both run to 02:00 — two in the morning — so both windows cross midnight and are encoded that way. 🚫 Flattening either to an end of 00:00 would say they reopen two hours early every night of the season.

⚠️ The last night of the season spills into October. The period ends on 30 September, but the windows that open that day run to 02:00, which is October. The schedule encodes the season by month, so those small hours fall outside it — a two-hour under-warning on exactly one night of the year, stated here rather than papered over.

🚨 This timetable cannot tell you whether the rules have commenced. The act makes the measures effective «από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακί-δων σήμανσης» and gives no date for that, so a verdict of "in force" means "in force whenever the signs are up". That is why `effective_from` is null.

This covers the market, Μιχαήλ Γούτου and the harbour, and nothing else in Mithymna. The same clause also orders bus bays, Ρ-40 parking bans on Κωνσταντίνου Δούκα and Αγ. Θεοκτίστης, motorcycle bays and three ΑμεΑ places — street furniture, not access restrictions, and deliberately outside this record.

The exceptions cannot be seen by a timetable. Vehicles going in and out of a property on a closed street are admitted by the Highway Code's own definition of a πεζόδρομος at every hour the rules are in force, so for them the schedule over-warns in every window — including, and especially, at the harbour.

Public holidays are not encoded, because the act does not mention them. It exempts no day, and 15 August falls inside the season.

Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.

What applies

Mithymna — the town almost every visitor to Lesbos knows as Molyvos, the one with the Genoese castle above the cobbled lanes and the harbour below — closes three separate areas to traffic for four months of the summer, and they close on three different clocks.

From 1 June to 30 September: the **traditional market** from 11:00 in the morning until 02:00 at night; the **central road, Μιχαήλ Γούτου**, from 19:00 until 02:00; and the **harbour**, «για όλο το 24ωρο» — around the clock, for the whole season.

The rule is clause Β) of a decision of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου, signed at Piraeus on 18 July 2025 and gazetted on 28 July 2025, approving decision 91/2025 of the municipal council of Δήμος Δυτικής Λέσβου. 🔑 The harbour clause is the one to read twice.

It is not an evening restriction with a generous window; it is a four-month closure with no hours at all, and the act says so in words rather than by leaving the clock blank.

If you are driving to Molyvos in summer expecting to park on the quay, you cannot. 🔑 This gazette item carries three settlements of one municipality — Mithymna, Skala Kallonis and Vasilika — each its own record here. ⚠️ Two other things under the same clause are street furniture and are deliberately not part of this record: five bus bays, a set of Ρ-40 parking bans, a motorcycle bay and three disabled-parking places.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4055/28.07.2025, item 1: «Έγκριση κυκλοφοριακών ρυθμίσεων στον Δήμο Δυτικής Λέσβου», Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου, Διεύθυνση Τεχνικού Ελέγχου, clause Β)

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. The clause closes three areas for a season; it creates no permit, no day ticket and no resident scheme, and no figure of any kind appears in it. ⚠️ It does defer to a standing municipal pedestrianisation regulation — «σύμφωνα με τα προβλεπόμενα στον ισχύοντα κανονισμό πεζοδρόμησης» — which the act neither numbers nor reproduces, so this is the absence of a published permit rather than proof that no permit exists.

When it operates

Three areas, one season, three different clocks — and the act prints all of them: «α) Της Παραδοσιακής Αγοράς κατά την περίοδο 1η Ιουνίου έως 30η Σεπτεμβρίου από τις 11:00 το πρωί έως τις 02:00 το βραδύ, β) της κεντρικής οδού Μιχαήλ Γούτου κατά την περίοδο 1η Ιουνίου έως 30η Σεπτεμβρίου από τις 19:00 το απόγευμα έως τις 02:00 το βραδύ, γ) του λιμανιού κατά την περίοδο 1η Ιουνίου έως 30η Σεπτεμβρίου για όλο το 24ωρο». 🔑 **The harbour has no clock because the act gives it none, and says why in the same breath: «για όλο το 24ωρο», for the whole twenty-four hours.** That is the one case where an empty window list states exactly what the act states rather than hiding a missing fact (D-275, D-278): the corpus's rule is that a blank clock must never stand in for an hour that was named but not published, and here nothing was named but not published. 🔑 The market opens its closure at 11:00 — before lunch, not in the evening — which is much earlier than any other Greek closure in this corpus and reflects what the traditional market is: a shopping street, closed for the working day and the evening together.

Both the market and Μιχαήλ Γούτου run to «02:00 το βραδύ», two in the morning, so both cross midnight into the following day. ⚠️ The act does not write «κάθε έτους».

The season is treated as annual here for the same reasons as its sibling clauses in the same decision: permanent signage is ordered with supplementary plates «για την περίοδο και το ωράριο εφαρμογής», the dates carry no year, and the decision regulates a scheme the town has run before. ⚠️ Commencement is not given: the measures run from the installation of the signs and the act names no date, which is why `effective_from` is null.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4055/28.07.2025, item 1, clause Β)

Area covered

Three named areas and seventeen surveyed sign positions.

The act regulates «την περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση ... στον οικισμό Μήθυμνας Δήμου Δυτικής Λέσβου» in three parts — «Της Παραδοσιακής Αγοράς», «της κεντρικής οδού Μιχαήλ Γούτου» and «του λιμανιού» — and prints a table headed ΠΕΡΙΟΔΙΚΗ ΠΕΖΟΔΡΟΜΗΣΗ ΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΥ ΜΗΘΥΜΝΑΣ with seventeen positions in ΕΓΣΑ 87, each with the sign code that stands there. 🔑 The codes are on the same rows as the coordinates, so nothing has to be guessed: thirteen of the seventeen carry «Ρ-7, Ρ-55, Πρ» and four — positions 5, 6, 7 and 8 — carry Ρ-7 alone. 🚫 What the act does NOT do is say which of the seventeen belongs to which of the three areas.

The market, the central road and the harbour are named in prose and signed in one undivided table, so this record does not attribute positions to areas. ⚠️ Seventeen points do not close a polygon, no street but Μιχαήλ Γούτου is named, and no drawing accompanies the item. ⚠️ One detail about that heading is worth stating plainly, because an earlier version of this page got it the wrong way round.

The gazette prints ΠΕΡΙΟΔΙΚΗ ΠΕΖΟΔΡΟΜΗΣΗ ΟΙΚΙΣΜΟΥ ΜΗΘΥΜΝΑΣ, correctly — verified on 28 September 2026 by reading the same file with a second, independent PDF reader. It is this site's own text extraction that mangles it, twice and in two different places, into ΜΗωΘΥΜΝΑΣ and ΜΗΘωΥΜΝΑΣ with a stray lower-case ω.

The damaged forms are kept in the automated checks that watch this act for changes, because that is what the checks actually see; the publisher spelled the town's name properly.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4055/28.07.2025, item 1, clause Β)

Why there is no map here
The published extent is three named areas in prose — the traditional market, the central road Μιχαήλ Γούτου and the harbour — plus seventeen surveyed sign positions in the Greek national grid, each with its sign code. 🔑 The codes are attributed to positions, which the Santorini act never manages; 🚫 but the positions are NOT attributed to the three areas, so this project cannot say where the market ends and the harbour begins, and does not guess. Seventeen points do not close a polygon, only one street is named, and no drawing accompanies the item.

The authority's own map: Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου / Δήμος Δυτικής Λέσβου, Διεύθυνση Τεχνικών…

Petrol standard

This scheme sets no emission threshold, and the absence is structural rather than unrecorded. It is a pedestrianisation under the Greek Highway Code: the test is whether a vehicle may be there at all during the closed period, not what it emits.

Diesel standard

The same as for petrol, and for the same structural reason: the act contains no emission criterion of any kind, and nothing in it turns on fuel, age or engine.

Penalty if you do not comply
€350.00 The act prints no figure at all; every number here is read from the statute, and the Code was read for this cycle on 2026-09-23 rather than inherited. Driving a vehicle on a pedestrian street is prohibited by article 20 §4 of ν. 5209/2025, the Greek Highway Code in force since 13 September 2025, and article 20 §8 β) classifies a breach of §4 in category Ε3-Β and additionally in category Σ. Article 108 §5 γ) γα) prices a category Ε3 breach at «διοικητικό πρόστιμο τριακοσίων πενήντα (350) ευρώ»; §5 γ) γβ) adds withdrawal of the driving licence and of the vehicle's registration documents for thirty days; §5 δ) adds a further forty days' withdrawal of the licence for category Σ. ⚠️ For a visitor in a hire car the measure against the vehicle's papers is a matter between the renter and the rental company that the Code does not address. 🔑 The word and the signs agree: the clause says «περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση» and thirteen of the seventeen surveyed positions carry Ρ-55. ⚠️ But four of them do not, and that matters here more than it does at Skala Kallonis. Positions 5, 6, 7 and 8 carry Ρ-7 alone — «Απαγορεύεται η είσοδος σε όλα τα οχήματα», no entry for all vehicles — which article 7 §11 ε) classifies in category Ε2-Β: €150 plus twenty days' withdrawal of the driving licence under §5 β) ββ), with no measure against the vehicle's documents and no forty-day Σ addition. 🔑 So on part of this scheme the only sign the act orders is the cheaper one, and nothing this project holds says which approach an officer treats as which. Failing to obey sign Ρ-55 as a sign is a third route again: article 7 §11 ζ) puts it in category Ε1-Α and in category Σ — €30 under §5 α) αα) plus forty days' withdrawal of the licence. This record publishes the largest figure because a driver should plan for the worst case, and states the others rather than hiding them.Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας». Article 20 §4 and §8 β) for driving on a pedestrian street; article 7 §3 ζ) for what sign Ρ-7 means; article 7 §11 ε) and ζ) for the sign categories; article 108 §5 for the tariff.

How to comply
  • 🚨 From 1 June to 30 September, do not plan to drive to the harbour at all. The act closes it «για όλο το 24ωρο» — the whole twenty-four hours, every day of those four months. This is not an evening restriction, and there is no hour of the summer at which the quay is open to vehicles.
  • In the same four months, the traditional market closes from 11:00 in the morning until 02:00 at night, and the central road Μιχαήλ Γούτου from 19:00 until 02:00. Three areas, three clocks — check which one you are heading for.
  • Outside 1 June to 30 September all three are ordinary streets at every hour.
  • Park above the town and walk down. Mithymna is a hillside town and everything a visitor comes for — the castle, the market lanes, the harbour tavernas — is inside or below the closed areas during the season. The same decision orders five bus bays and a motorcycle parking area, so the municipality expects arrival on foot from the edge.
  • ⚠️ The last night of the season spills into October. The period ends on 30 September, but the market's and the central road's windows run to 02:00 — so the first two hours of 1 October are still inside the last closure of the year. This page's timetable encodes the season by month and will say "not in force" for those hours; the signs are what govern.
  • ⚠️ If the post is bare, the rule has not started yet. The act's third condition makes the measures effective «από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακί-δων σήμανσης, των σηματοδοτών ή των διαγραμμίσεων στο οδόστρωμα» — from the installation of the signs — and gives no date for that.
  • You are admitted if you live or are staying on a closed street. Article 4 §56 of the Highway Code defines a πεζόδρομος as a road used exclusively by pedestrians and for vehicles going in and out of parking on properties fronting it. If your hotel is inside the closed area, that is the exemption you are relying on — and it is worth confirming with the hotel before you arrive, because the harbour closure runs around the clock.
  • ⚠️ The cost of getting it wrong is up to €350 plus licence measures — €350, thirty days' withdrawal of the driving licence and of the vehicle's registration documents, and a further forty days for the category Σ classification. ⚠️ Four of the seventeen signed positions carry only Ρ-7, which is a €150 offence with twenty days and no measure against the vehicle's papers; `penalty` sets all three routes out.
  • Read the plate under the sign for the authoritative hours. The act orders supplementary informational plates carrying «την περίοδο και το ωράριο εφαρμογής» — the period and the hours — so each area carries its own two facts. If a plate says something different from this page, the plate is what an officer reads.
  • There is nothing to buy and nowhere to buy it. No permit, no exemption procedure and no charge appears in the clause — but it does defer to a standing municipal pedestrianisation regulation that it never numbers, so treat that as unread rather than as absent.
Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4055/28.07.2025, item 1, clause Β), with the fine read from ν. 5209/2025 (ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025)

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-22.

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