Candi Plaosan is close enough to Prambanan to pair with it, but it feels very different. The two main temple groups, Plaosan Lor and Plaosan Kidul, sit among fields and village roads rather than inside the busiest part of the archaeological park.
The complex is Buddhist, built in the same 9th-century world as Prambanan, and the reliefs and bodhisattva figures make the Hindu-Buddhist mix of Central Java easier to see. Come late in the afternoon if you can; the stone warms in the low light and the surrounding rice fields do much of the work.