Mytilene, Greece · Limited traffic zone
Official name Έγκριση κυκλοφοριακών ρυθμίσεων ετήσιας περιοδικής πεζοδρόμησης στο ιστορικό κέντρο της πόλης της Μυτιλήνης (αποφ. 15252/ΜOE, ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, όπως τροποποιήθηκε με την αποφ. 12101/MOE, ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025)
In force in Mytilene right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 12:05 · Europe/Athens
The empty window list is the publisher's own shape and not a missing fact. Both acts close their streets «καθ’ όλο το 24ωρο», and the 2025 amendment removed the last daily hours that existed — Athanasiou Mitrelia and Ladadika had run 20:00 to 06:00 — and ordered the signs carrying them taken down. Inside the season there is no hour at which any of these streets opens, so a verdict of "in force" is correct at 04:00 as it is at 16:00.
The season is encoded as a thirty-day gap rather than as whole months because that is how the act states it. 10 January and 10 February are both inside the closure; 11 January to 9 February is outside it. A reader arriving in the first ten days of January or after the ninth of February should expect the rule, not the gap.
The three dates on which the ban comes off Ermou — 25 March and 28 October from 11:00 to 14:00, and 8 November from 08:00 to 14:00 — are deliberately NOT encoded. They lift the ban for part of one day on one street, and this schedule has no way to say that: encoding them as not_in_force would tell a driver the whole scheme was open all day on those dates, which is wrong in both directions. The verdict therefore over-warns for nine hours a year, in the safe direction, and the hours field states the exemption in full.
The supply window, 05:00 to 10:00, is a permission and not a restriction, so it is absent from the rules above. It admits a supply vehicle to a closed street; it does not open the street, and encoding it as a gap in the closure would invert its meaning.
The admitted categories cannot be seen by a timetable. Emergency, refuse and municipal vehicles and anything holding the municipality's special transit permit may enter at any hour the rule is in force, so for them this schedule over-warns in every window.
Public holidays are not encoded, and the act's treatment of them is the opposite of an exemption: 25 March and 28 October are national holidays and the act names them precisely in order to lift the ban for three hours, which implies the scheme is otherwise in force on holidays like any other day.
This encoding rests on a reading, and the reading is stated in the hours field. The 2025 amendment changes «το χρονικό διάστημα της περιοδικής πεζοδρόμησης στο ιστορικό κέντρο» without itemising which of the original act's three closures it replaces. All three are read as covered, because the act it amends is titled for the historic centre as a whole. If that reading is wrong, the closures the original act set at 15 April to 15 November would also be open between 16 November and 9 February, and the verdict here would over-warn for that stretch.
Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.
Mytilene — the harbour town that ferries from Piraeus and from Ayvalık arrive at, and the place most visitors to Lesvos land — closes its historic centre to vehicles for eleven months of the year, and the number that matters to a driver is the one month that is left.
The gazette calls the scheme an «ετήσια περιοδική πεζοδρόμηση», an annual periodic pedestrianisation, and when it was first approved in June 2024 that meant a seven-month season from 15 April to 15 November. A second amendment, gazetted on 14 May 2025, replaced the season with a window running from 10 February each year to 10 January of the next one.
So the closed streets below are closed all day and every day, and the only stretch of the calendar in which they are ordinary roads is 11 January to 9 February. 🔑 What closes is a connected block behind the waterfront, plus the street that runs through the middle of it.
Sections of Ermou are banned to vehicles around the clock from Kornarou, at Epano Skala, down to Agiou Therapontos — with two short lengths deliberately left open in both directions so that residents can reach their doors, Mitropoleos to Pergamou and Adramytiou to Simantiri.
Eight more streets are closed around the clock for the whole season: Methodiou over its full length, Chrysostomou Smyrnis in two lengths, Ioakeim G΄, Palaion Patron Germanou over its full length, L. Voutsika, Limnou and Komninaki.
Athanasiou Mitrelia and Ladadika were originally closed only at night — the ban ran 20:00 to 06:00 — and the 2025 amendment closed them around the clock as well, ordering the removal of the extra signs at the Ikarias junction that had carried the old hours.
A separate closure surrounds the Chatzidimou Park, where circulation is anticlockwise and Komninaki from Skra to the park is banned to vehicles. ⚠️ A visitor is not in any of the categories allowed in.
The decision admits shop supply vehicles between 05:00 and 10:00, refuse and street-cleaning vehicles, municipal service vehicles, ambulances, fire engines and police, and any vehicle holding a special transit permit issued by the Δήμος Μυτιλήνης. Around the Chatzidimou Park a second and narrower exemption exists for residents of that area and guests of the hotel there who hold a transit card.
There is no tourist permit, no day pass and no tariff of any kind anywhere in either decision. 🔑 Three times a year the ban on Ermou lifts for a few hours and the whole street legally carries traffic: 25 March and 28 October from 11:00 to 14:00, and 8 November from 08:00 to 14:00.
Those are Greece's two national holidays and the anniversary Lesvos keeps for itself, and the exemption exists for the parades rather than for drivers.
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως. Two acts of the Γραμματέας Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Αιγαίου read together: ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, αριθμ. 15252/ΜOE, which approves part of decision 127/2024 of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Μυτιλήνης and creates the scheme; and ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025, αριθμ. 12101/MOE, which approves decision 97/2025 of the same council and amends it. The second act states in terms that the first survives it — «Κατά τα λοιπά, ισχύει η υπ’ αρ. 15252/31-05-2024 απόφασή μας» — and that the intervening first amendment, αριθμ. 7737/20-03-2025 in ΦΕΚ Β' 1805/11.04.2025, ceases to have effect
Nothing is charged and there is nothing a visitor can buy.
Neither act sets a fee, a tariff, a day pass or a price of any kind: the words that would carry one — τέλος, κόστος, παράβολο — appear nowhere in either operative text, and the 2025 act's list of admitted vehicles is a list of functions and permissions, not of purchases. ⚠️ Two documents in the scheme could be mistaken for something buyable and neither is offered to a visitor.
The «ειδική άδεια διέλευσης από τον Δήμο Μυτιλήνης» is a special transit permit the municipality issues; the act names it as a category of admitted vehicle and says nothing at all about who may apply, on what grounds, or for what money, so this record does not claim it is free and does not claim it is purchasable.
The «κάρτα διέλευσης» that exempts residents of the Chatzidimou Park area and guests of the hotel there is an eligibility document tied to living or staying at a named place, and again the act sets no price for it. Neither is a mechanism for a driver who simply wants to enter, because the decisions create no such mechanism.
Closed all day, every day, from 10 February each year until 10 January of the following year. That is the whole of the timetable and it is unusual in being almost the whole of the calendar: the streets on this record are ordinary roads only between 11 January and 9 February.
The 2025 amendment states the window in one sentence — «θα ισχύει από 10 Φεβρουαρίου κάθε έτους έως 10 Ιανουαρίου του επόμενου έτους» — and it replaced the seven-month season the original act had set, «από 15 Απριλίου έως 15 Νοεμβρίου κάθε έτους». 🔑 Inside the window there is no daily clock to read.
The original act closed its streets «καθ’ όλο το 24ωρο» and the 2025 amendment closed the last two that had an hour — Athanasiou Mitrelia and Ladadika, whose ban had run «από 20:00 μμ έως 06:00 πμ» — «για όλο το 24ωρο με εξαίρεση των ωρών τροφοδοσίας», and ordered the extra information signs that carried those hours taken down.
So a driver who arrives at 11:00 in July and a driver who arrives at 23:00 in March meet the same rule. ⚠️ One clock does exist and it is a permission rather than a restriction: shop supply vehicles may circulate «από 05:00 π.μ έως 10:00 π.μ.», and the original act separately allows supply traffic on Ermou «έως 10.00 π.μ.».
That window admits a delivery vehicle; it does not open the street to anyone else, and it must not be read as five hours in which the zone is unrestricted. 🔑 Three fixed dates take the ban off Ermou for part of the day: «28η Οκτωβρίου για τις ώρες 11:00-14:00», «25η Μαρτίου για τις ώρες 11:00-14:00» and «8η Νοεμβρίου για τις ώρες 08:00-14:00».
They lift the entry ban «σε όλο το μήκος της οδού Ερμού» — the whole length, including the parts that are otherwise closed — and they lift nothing on any other street. ⚠️ And one honest limit on all of the above.
The 2025 amendment changes «το χρονικό διάστημα της περιοδικής πεζοδρόμησης στο ιστορικό κέντρο της πόλης της Μυτιλήνης» as a single thing; it does not itemise which of the original act's three numbered closures the new window replaces. The act it amends is titled for the historic centre as a whole and all three closures are inside it, so this record reads the new window as governing all of them.
That is a reading of a general sentence, not a quotation of an itemised one, and a driver in the second week of January — the one week where the two readings differ — should expect signs rather than this page to settle it.
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025, αριθμ. 12101/MOE, part 1 point i for the season, point ii for the removal of the last daily hours, point v for the three dates on which Ermou reopens, and part 2 for the supply window; read together with ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, αριθμ. 15252/ΜOE, points 1 to 3, for the season and hours the amendment replaced and for the supply traffic allowed on Ermou until 10.00
The historic centre of Mytilene, behind the Kountouriotou waterfront, plus the length of Ermou that runs through it and a separate block around the Chatzidimou Park.
The municipality describes the shape in one sentence — «όλους τους δρόμους του ιστορικού κέντρου όπως αυτό περικλείεται από τις οδούς Μητροπόλεως, Αρχιπελάγους, Χίου και Ερμού», all the streets of the historic centre as enclosed by Mitropoleos, Archipelagous, Chiou and Ermou — and the gazette does the governing work by naming the streets one at a time. 🔑 Closed around the clock for the whole season: Methodiou «σε όλο της το μήκος»; Chrysostomou Smyrnis from Ermou towards Methodiou-Ioakeim, and again from Ioakeim G΄ towards Athanasiou Mitrelia; Ioakeim G΄ from Ermou to Chrysostomou Smyrnis; Palaion Patron Germanou «σε όλο της το μήκος»; L.
Voutsika from Ermou towards Archipelagous; Limnou from Archipelagous towards Athanasiou Mitrelia; and Komninaki from Ladadika towards the access road to the Chatzidimou Park.
Athanasiou Mitrelia, from its junction with Ikarias to its junction with Samou, and Ladadika, from its junction with Samou to its junction with Chiou, are closed around the clock as well since the 2025 amendment, with supply hours excepted. 🔑 Sections of Ermou are closed from Kornarou, at Epano Skala, to Agiou Therapontos, and the act carves two short lengths out of that closure so residents can still drive: from Mitropoleos to Pergamou, and from Adramytiou to Simantiri — «μικρή κάθετη οδός», a small cross street — on which Ermou keeps working in both directions.
It also publishes the two ways of crossing the street rather than driving along it: down Pittakou towards Ikarias and out onto Kountouriotou, and up from Kountouriotou, the quayside, by way of Alkaiou. ⚠️ Ikarias itself is open.
The municipality's announcement of the scheme says so in terms — vehicles may use it «όλο το 24ωρο» — and it is the exception a driver inside the block will actually need. 🔑 The Chatzidimou Park closure is separate and was added in 2025: circulation around the park is anticlockwise, entry is banned around the park and on Komninaki from Skra to the park, and two-way movement there is reserved for residents' vehicles, the hotel's residents and security.
It is the only part of the scheme for which the gazette prints geometry, and it prints two points rather than an extent: ΕΓΣΑ 87 720947/4331500 and 720947/4331496, both carrying signs Ρ-19 and Π-92. ⚠️ Two limits on this list, and the second is the more important.
First, the original act's own drawings — Χ-1 «Κυκλοφοριακή οργάνωση περιοχής μελέτης», Χ-2 «Κυκλοφοριακή οργάνωση οδός Ερμού», Χ-3 «Κυκλοφοριακή σήμανση περιοχής μελέτης» and Χ-4 «Κυκλοφοριακή σήμανση οδός Ερμού» — are carried by the gazette as image pages, so the lines they draw cannot be read back.
Second, the two acts describe Athanasiou Mitrelia differently and this record does not reconcile them: the 2024 act closes it «από Ικαρίας έως και προς Λαδάδικα», the 2025 act «από την συμβολή της με την οδό Ικαρίας έως την συμβολή της με την οδό Σάμου». The later act governs, both are printed here, and neither is corrected into the other.
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως: ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, αριθμ. 15252/ΜOE, points 1 to 3 for the street list, the two excepted lengths of Ermou and the two through-routes, and the list of attached drawings Χ-1 to Χ-4; and ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025, αριθμ. 12101/MOE, points ii, iii and iv for the redescribed Athanasiou Mitrelia and Ladadika closures and for the Chatzidimou Park block with its two ΕΓΣΑ 87 sign points. Read together with the Δήμος Μυτιλήνης announcement of 7 June 2024 for the perimeter sentence and for Ikarias staying open
The authority's own map: Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου / Δήμος Μυτιλήνης, Διεύθυνση Τεχνικών Υπηρεσιών…
Neither act sets an emission threshold, and the absence is structural rather than unrecorded. The scheme asks three questions about a vehicle — is it on one of the named streets, is the date inside the 10 February to 10 January window, and does it belong to one of the admitted functions — and it asks nothing whatever about what leaves the exhaust.
A Euro 6 hire car is barred on Ermou in July exactly as a Euro 1 one is, and a Euro 0 refuse lorry is admitted. Greece publishes no national low-emission scheme of the Italian or German kind that this project has read, and this record makes no claim either way about one.
The same as for petrol, and for the same structural reason: neither decision contains an emission class of any kind for any fuel. The only vehicle characteristics they use are function — supply, cleaning, municipal service, emergency — and paperwork, in the shape of a municipal transit permit or a resident's transit card. Nothing in either act distinguishes a diesel from a petrol vehicle at any hour of any month.
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας», the Highway Code in force since 13 September 2025. Article 20 §4 and §8 β) for driving on a pedestrian street; article 7 §3 ιθ) for what sign Ρ-19 means, article 7 §4 τα) for Π-92, and article 7 §11 ε) for the category Ρ-19 falls in; article 108 §1 to §5 for the categories and the tariff of each; article 38 §2 ι) and §11 α) for stopping and parking. Article 114 §4 keeps regulatory acts issued under the 1999 Code in force, which is why acts gazetted in 2024 and in May 2025 survive the repeal that article 115 β) and article 132 §1 brought into effect on 13 September 2025
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025, αριθμ. 12101/MOE, for the season, the admitted vehicles, the Chatzidimou Park block and the three dates Ermou reopens, and ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, αριθμ. 15252/ΜOE, for the street list, the excepted lengths of Ermou and the through-routes; read together with the Δήμος Μυτιλήνης announcement of 7 June 2024 for Ikarias and for the superseded hours, and with ν. 5209/2025 for the sanctions
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 2335/14.05.2025, αριθμ. 12101/MOE of the Γραμματέας Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Αιγαίου, signed at Piraeus on 12 May 2025 by Μαριάννα Νικολαΐδου. The governing source for everything on this record that has changed since 2024: it approves decision 97/2025 of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Μυτιλήνης (ΑΔΑ 94ΠΠ46ΜΓΘΓ-ΙΙΤ), which is the second amendment of council decision 127/2024, and it prints the new season, the round-the-clock closure of Athanasiou Mitrelia and Ladadika with the removal of the signs carrying their old hours, the anticlockwise circulation and entry ban around the Chatzidimou Park with its two ΕΓΣΑ 87 sign points, the three dates on which Ermou reopens, and the list of vehicles admitted to every street in the scheme. It also settles what is in force: the first amendment, αριθμ. 7737/20-03-2025 in ΦΕΚ Β' 1805/11.04.2025, «παύει να ισχύει», and «κατά τα λοιπά» the 2024 act stands
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 3297/11.06.2024, αριθμ. 15252/ΜOE of the Γραμματέας Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Αιγαίου, signed at Piraeus on 31 May 2024 by Μαριάννα Νικολαΐδου, ΑΔΑ ΨΞΑΝΟΡ1Ι-Η46. The act that created the scheme, approving part of decision 127/2024 of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Μυτιλήνης (ΑΔΑ Ψ36Χ46ΜΓΘΓ-Σ1Ε) under article 52 §1 and articles 52Α and 109 of the Highway Code. It prints the street list, the closure of sections of Ermou from Kornarou to Agiou Therapontos with its two excepted lengths and two through-routes, the original 15 April to 15 November season, the condition that the measures take effect only when the signs go up, and the four annexed drawings Χ-1 to Χ-4. It remains in force except where the 2025 amendment above replaces it
Δήμος Μυτιλήνης, Γραφείο Τύπου — «Από τη Δευτέρα 10 Ιουνίου τίθεται σε ισχύ η πεζοδρόμηση της οδού Ερμού και του ιστορικού κέντρου της πόλης της Μυτιλήνης», the municipality's own announcement of 7 June 2024 that the scheme was starting. 🚨 This is a press announcement and no rule on this record is taken from it. It is cited for two things the gazette's readable text does not give and one thing it is the only witness to: the perimeter of the block in the municipality's own words, «όλους τους δρόμους του ιστορικού κέντρου όπως αυτό περικλείεται από τις οδούς Μητροπόλεως, Αρχιπελάγους, Χίου και Ερμού»; the fact that Ikarias stays open to vehicles around the clock; and the date the municipality said the scheme would take effect, Monday 10 June 2024, which is the nearest thing that exists to a date for a rule the act times from the placement of the signs
Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας», the Greek Highway Code in force since 13 September 2025. Cited for the sanctions neither municipal act prints, and for what the two signs they do print actually mean: article 7 §3 ιθ) for Ρ-19, article 7 §4 τα) for Π-92, article 7 §11 ε) for the category Ρ-19 falls in, article 20 §4 and §8 β) for driving on a pedestrian street, article 38 §2 ι) and §11 α) for stopping or parking on one, article 108 §1 to §5 for what each category costs, and articles 114 §4, 115 β) and 132 §1 for why acts gazetted in 2024 and in May 2025 survive the repeal of the 1999 Code
Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-22.