Driving in Pythagoreio: Limited traffic zone

Pythagoreio, Greece · Limited traffic zone

Official name «Α. Την απαγόρευση εισόδου σε όλα τα οχήματα, μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο 1/5 έως 30/9 κάθε έτους (από τις 12:00 το μεσημέρι έως τις 06:00 το πρωί), στο τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι» — item A of αριθμ. 59341/ΜΟΕ of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου, approving decision 131/2019 of the Δημοτικό Συμβούλιο Σάμου, signed at Piraeus on 25 October 2019 and published as the second item of ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019

Not in force in Pythagoreio right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 12:04 · Europe/Athens

  • Not in force Every vehicle on the final stretch towards the harbour of οδός Δεσπότη Κυρίλλου, οδός Ιατρού Θέμελη, οδός Αιγαίου Πελάγους, οδός Αγίου Νικολάου, οδός Ήρας, πάροδος Αισώπου and οδός Μέλισσου, in Pythagoreio. The act orders sign Ρ-7 with supplementary plate Πρ-18α at those points; the Highway Code defines Ρ-7 as no entry for all vehicles and Πρ-18α as «Επιτρέπεται μόνο για τα «TAXI»», so a taxi is outside this timetable and everything else is inside it. 🚫 Ρ-7 carries no frontage-property or emergency-vehicle carve-out of its own, unlike the Ρ-55 πεζόδρομος sign used elsewhere in this corpus. The closure runs «μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο 1/5 έως 30/9 κάθε έτους» — 1 May to 30 September. January, February, March, April, October, November and December fall wholly outside it, so these are ordinary streets at every hour of those seven months. 🔑 Neither end of the season is a split month: it opens on the first of May and closes on the last of September, so there are no part-months to except.

🔑 The window crosses midnight and is encoded that way, 12:00 to 06:00. The closed period is the long one: eighteen hours shut, six hours open. 🚫 It must never be inverted into an opening from midday to six.

⚠️ The last night of the season therefore ends on 1 October. The act names 30 September as the last day of the period; the closure that begins at midday on that day runs until 06:00, which is October. The schedule encodes the season by month, so the small hours of 1 October fall outside it — a six-hour under-warning on exactly one morning of the year, stated here rather than papered over.

🚨 This timetable cannot tell you whether the rule has commenced. Condition 3 of the approval makes the measures effective «από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης, των σηματοδοτών ή των διαγραμμίσεων στο οδόστρωμα» — from the placing of the signs — and no publisher has dated that. A verdict of "in force" here means "in force whenever the signs are up", which is why `effective_from` is null.

⚠️ It also cannot tell you how far up each street the closure reaches. The act restricts it to «το τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι» — the final stretch towards the harbour — and prints no end points. The timetable is right about when and only approximately right about where; see `area`.

This covers operative item A of the act and nothing else. Item B of the same act closes οδός Ροίκου and οδός Θεοδώρου to traffic with sign Ρ-8, with no hours and no season at all, and that measure is described in `area` rather than encoded here — it is not part of this timetable and must not inherit its season.

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

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

What applies

Pythagoreio is the harbour town on the south-east coast of Samos, below the airport, and for five months of the year the streets that run down to its quay are closed to traffic for eighteen hours a day.

On 8 November 2019 the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου gazetted its approval of Samos town council decision 131/2019, and the first of its four operative items is this one: «Την απαγόρευση εισόδου σε όλα τα οχήματα, μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο 1/5 έως 30/9 κάθε έτους (από τις 12:00 το μεσημέρι έως τις 06:00 το πρωί), στο τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι, στις οδούς Δεσπότη Κυρίλλου, Ιατρού Θέμελη, Αιγαίου Πελάγους, Αγίου Νικολάου, Ήρας, πάροδος Αισώπου και Μέλισσου» — no entry for all vehicles, from midday to six in the morning, from 1 May to 30 September, on the final stretch towards the harbour of seven named streets. 🔑 THE SIGN IS Ρ-7 WITH A TAXI PLATE UNDER IT, AND THAT IS NOT THE ARRANGEMENT MOST GREEK CLOSURES IN THIS CORPUS USE.

The act names the plates it orders: «με τοποθέτηση ρυθμιστικών πινακίδων (Ρ-7) και πρόσθετων (Πρ-18α)». Measured on ν. 5209/2025 on 2026-09-27, article 7 §3 defines «ζ) Ρ-7: Απαγορεύεται η είσοδος σε όλα τα οχήματα» and article 7 §5 «κστ) Πρ-18α: Επιτρέπεται μόνο για τα «TAXI»».

So the exemption the publisher granted is a taxi exemption, and it is the only one printed. 🚨 A Ρ-7 CLOSURE IS NOT A ΠΕΖΟΔΡΟΜΟΣ, AND THE DIFFERENCE COSTS A RESIDENT THEIR OWN DRIVEWAY.

Most Greek records in this corpus are pedestrianisations signed Ρ-55, and the Highway Code writes the exemptions into the sign itself: «Ρ-55: Οδός υποχρεωτικής διέλευσης πεζών (πεζόδρομος, απαγορευμένης της διέλευσης άλλων εκτός πεζών, οχημάτων άμεσης ανάγκης και οχημάτων για την είσοδο - έξοδο σε παρόδιες ιδιοκτησίες)» — emergency vehicles and frontage access are admitted by the sign's own definition.

Ρ-7 carries no such carve-out. 🚫 Do not read a frontage-property or resident exemption into this record because the corpus's other Greek pages have one; this act prints a taxi plate and nothing else.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-27
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019, the second item of the issue: αριθμ. 59341/ΜΟΕ of the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Αιγαίου, «Έγκριση κυκλοφοριακών ρυθμίσεων στη Δ/Κ Πυθαγορείου του Δήμου Σάμου» — the operative item A in full, with the season, the hours, the seven streets and the two sign codes

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy. The measure is a κυκλοφοριακή ρύθμιση approved under articles 52 §1, 52Α and 109 of the Highway Code, and its operative word is «απαγόρευση εισόδου» — a prohibition of entry.

No permit, sticker, resident pass, exemption scheme or price appears anywhere in the item, nor in the seven conditions attached to the approval. 🚫 Do not read the absence of a price as free access: there is no price because there is no way to buy your way in during the closed hours. The one class the act lets through it lets through for nothing — a taxi, by the Πρ-18α plate.

When it operates

Midday to six in the morning, every day, from 1 May to 30 September: «μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο 1/5 έως 30/9 κάθε έτους (από τις 12:00 το μεσημέρι έως τις 06:00 το πρωί)».

That is eighteen hours closed and six hours open — the street is available from 06:00 to 12:00 and shut for the rest of the day. 🔑 THE WINDOW CROSSES MIDNIGHT AND IT IS THE CLOSURE, NOT THE OPENING. «Από τις 12:00 το μεσημέρι έως τις 06:00 το πρωί» runs from one afternoon into the next morning, so the small hours belong to the previous day's closure.

A reader who flattens it to 12:00–06:00 within one calendar day gets the rule inside out and tells a driver the street is shut all morning and open all evening, which is the opposite of the truth. ⚠️ THE SEASON IS EXACT AT BOTH ENDS AND THE ACT GIVES NO WEEKDAY, NO HOLIDAY AND NO DELIVERY HOUR. 1 May and 30 September are both whole days, so there are no part-months.

Outside those five months the item does not apply at any hour; the act says «μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο». 15 August falls inside the season and is not excepted. The absence of a supply-vehicle window is the act's own: many Greek closures of this shape carry one and this one does not, which is stated here rather than filled in.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-27
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019, second item, operative item A: the season and the clock, read against the seven conditions of the approval, which print no time of any kind

Area covered

Seven streets in Pythagoreio, and on each of them only «το τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι» — the final stretch towards the harbour: οδός Δεσπότη Κυρίλλου, οδός Ιατρού Θέμελη, οδός Αιγαίου Πελάγους, οδός Αγίου Νικολάου, οδός Ήρας, πάροδος Αισώπου and οδός Μέλισσου. The act names no end point on any of them and publishes no coordinate.

It refers to an attached plan — «σύμφωνα με το επισυναπτόμενο "ΣΧΕΔΙΟ ΠΟΛΗΣ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΕΙΟΥ"» — and the gazette does not carry it: the issue is four pages and the item is prose from end to end. 🔑 WHAT ANCHORS THIS RECORD TO PYTHAGOREIO IS THE ACT'S OWN STREET NAMES IN OPENSTREETMAP, NOT THE GEOCODER.

Overpass, queried on 2026-09-27 over the eastern half of Samos, returns ways named Αιγαίου Πελάγους, Αγίου Νικολάου, Ήρας, Αισώπου, Θεοδώρου and Πυθαγόρα in two separate clusters about eight kilometres apart: one at the anchor taken for this record, 40 to 307 metres away, and one at Βαθύ, the island's capital, 7.8 to 8.1 km north.

The act names the place itself — «στη Δ/Κ Πυθαγορείου του Δήμου Σάμου» — and the southern cluster is Pythagoreio. 🚫 A reader who matched the street names alone could have placed this in Vathy, which the act does not regulate. ⚠️ AND A MEASURED GAP IN THAT INSTRUMENT, RECORDED RATHER THAN SMOOTHED OVER.

Three of the seven street names — Δεσπότη Κυρίλλου, Ιατρού Θέμελη and Μέλισσου — are returned by Overpass in neither cluster, and a fourth, Πολυκράτους, appears only at Vathy.

OpenStreetMap's coverage of this town's minor streets is therefore partial, which means the four names that do match are a confirmation and the three that do not are not a refutation. 🚫 An absence from OSM is not evidence that a street the gazette names does not exist. 🚨 THE SAME ACT CARRIES A SECOND, PERMANENT CLOSURE THAT THIS RECORD DOES NOT MAP.

Item B reads: «Την απαγόρευση προσπέλασης σε μηχανοκίνητα οχήματα στις οδούς Ροίκου και Θεοδώρου, ανάμεσα στα οικοδομικά τετράγωνα 48-49-58-59-60, με τοποθέτηση ρυθμιστικών πινακίδων (Ρ-8) (Κλειστή οδός για όλα τα οχήματα και προς τις δύο κατευθύνσεις)». It has no season and no hours, so it is not part of the timetable above. Two things stop this project from publishing its extent.

Its bounds are building-block numbers — οικοδομικά τετράγωνα 48-49-58-59-60 — which the gazette never maps to anything on the ground; and Overpass returns no way named Ροίκου at Pythagoreio at all, only three of that name at Vathy. ⚠️ Note also that the publisher's own prose and its own sign gloss disagree about who is barred: the sentence says «μηχανοκίνητα οχήματα», motorised vehicles, while the Ρ-8 gloss it prints in the same breath says «όλα τα οχήματα», all vehicles.

If you are driving either street, read the plate on the post.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-27
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019, second item: the seven street names and the «τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι» limit in operative item A, the reference to the attached ΣΧΕΔΙΟ ΠΟΛΗΣ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΕΙΟΥ in the approval sentence, and the whole of operative item B including the building-block numbers and the printed Ρ-8 gloss

Why there is no map here
The act names a plan and the gazette does not carry it. The approval sentence reads «σύμφωνα με το επισυναπτόμενο "ΣΧΕΔΙΟ ΠΟΛΗΣ ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΕΙΟΥ"», an attached town plan, and measured on 2026-09-27 the four-page ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019 is 2 172 224 bytes and yields 8 502 characters of text containing no coordinate pair, no drawing and no map of any kind — the plan is referred to and not published. Within the prose the extent is further narrowed to «το τελευταίο μόνο τμήμα προς το λιμάνι» on each of seven streets, with no end points given, and the act's second item bounds itself by building-block numbers that are never mapped. 🚫 The city-level warning stands rather than an outline: seven part-streets are not the town, and drawing the Δημοτική Ενότητα Πυθαγορείου shape would overstate a harbour-side closure by kilometres. ⚠️ A second reason not to draw anything is in `area` — several of these street names recur at Βαθύ, eight kilometres north, so a generous outline would not merely be too large, it would eventually collide with streets this act does not regulate.
Petrol standard

This scheme sets no emission threshold, and the absence is structural rather than unrecorded. The measure asks where you are and what time it is, and it asks nothing at all about the vehicle except whether it is a taxi. No Euro class, no fuel type and no registration year appears anywhere in the act.

A Euro 6 car is barred from the quay at nine in the evening in July exactly as a Euro 2 one is.

Diesel standard

The same as for petrol, and for the same structural reason: the act contains no emission class of any kind, for any fuel. ⚠️ Worth saying explicitly for diesel, because a reader arriving from this corpus's Italian and Spanish pages will expect a diesel-specific rung and there is none here. An electric car is inside the closure too.

Penalty if you do not comply
€150.00 €150 AND twenty days without a driving licence. The act prints no figure; every step below was read on the statute on 2026-09-27 for this record rather than inherited from this corpus's other Greek pages.Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-27
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας» — article 7 §11 ε) for the offence category «Ε2-Β», which names Ρ-7 and Ρ-8 explicitly and includes their combination with supplementary plates, and article 108 §5 β) for the amount and the twenty days. Article 7 §3 «ζ) Ρ-7» and article 7 §5 «κστ) Πρ-18α» supply the sign meanings, and article 7 §3 «ξ) Ρ-55» the contrast drawn below.

How to comply
  • Between 1 May and 30 September, do not drive down to the harbour of Pythagoreio between midday and six the next morning. The streets closed are Δεσπότη Κυρίλλου, Ιατρού Θέμελη, Αιγαίου Πελάγους, Αγίου Νικολάου, Ήρας, πάροδος Αισώπου and Μέλισσου — and on each of them only the final stretch towards the quay, so the upper end of the same street may be open.
  • The six hours from 06:00 to 12:00 are the open ones. If you are loading a boat, moving a hire car or dropping luggage at the quay in high summer, that morning window is what the act leaves you.
  • 🔑 One exemption is printed and it is not a resident exemption. The act orders sign Ρ-7 with supplementary plate Πρ-18α, and the Highway Code defines that plate as «Επιτρέπεται μόνο για τα «TAXI»» — only taxis are let through. 🚫 Do not assume you may reach your own gate: unlike the Ρ-55 πεζόδρομος sign used in many Greek towns, Ρ-7 carries no frontage-property carve-out, and this act grants none separately.
  • Outside 1 May to 30 September these are ordinary streets at every hour. The act applies «μόνο για την θερινή περίοδο».
  • ⚠️ A separate, permanent closure sits in the same act and has nothing to do with the season: οδός Ροίκου and οδός Θεοδώρου are closed between building blocks 48-49-58-59-60 under sign Ρ-8, all year and all day. The act's own wording is ambiguous about who is barred — its sentence says motorised vehicles, the Ρ-8 gloss it prints says all vehicles — and this project cannot tell you where the building-block bounds fall on the ground. Read the plate on the post before you turn in.
  • 🚨 Make sure you are in Pythagoreio and not in Vathy. Samos has streets of several of these names in both towns, about eight kilometres apart, and this act regulates the Δ/Κ Πυθαγορείου ones only.
  • If you are stopped, the cost is not only the fine. Measured on ν. 5209/2025 on 2026-09-27: article 7 §11 ε) puts a Ρ-7 or Ρ-8 offence — including the sign combined with a supplementary plate — in category Ε2-Β, and article 108 §5 β) prices Ε2-Β as «το διοικητικό πρόστιμο της υποκατηγορίας Ε2-Α», which is «εκατόν πενήντα (150) ευρώ», «και το διοικητικό μέτρο αφαίρεσης της άδειας οδήγησης για είκοσι (20) ημέρες». 🔑 That is five times the €30 of category Ε1-Α, which is where the same Code puts an offence against the Ρ-55 pedestrian-street sign — a Ρ-7 closure is the more expensive kind to ignore.
  • The approval's own condition 3 puts the measure on the ground before it binds: «Τα μέτρα που λαμβάνονται με την παρούσα απόφαση να ισχύουν από την τοποθέτηση των οικείων πινακίδων σήμανσης, των σηματοδοτών ή των διαγραμμίσεων στο οδόστρωμα». Signs on the street are what tell you the closure is live; no publisher has dated their placing.
Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-27
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 4084/08.11.2019, second item: operative item A for the season, the clock, the seven streets and the two sign codes, operative item B for the permanent closure, and condition 3 for the commencement clause. The sign meanings, the offence category and the amounts are from ν. 5209/2025, cited separately below.

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-27.

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