Plaka is the capital of Milos and its most rewarding village. The town climbs a rocky ridge above Adamas, its whitewashed cubic houses, domed churches, and narrow alleys stacked up the hillside in the manner typical of Cycladic hilltop settlements built to be defended rather than admired. At the top, the kastro — the remnants of a medieval Venetian fortress — offers a 360-degree view over the western coast, the bay, and the scattered islands beyond. It is one of the finer viewpoints in the Cyclades, especially at sunset when the light turns the white walls orange and the sea darkens to indigo.
The village has a genuinely lived-in quality that beach resorts rarely sustain: there are children in the squares in the evening, small grocery shops alongside the tourist cafés, and the sound of local life audible through the open windows. The Archaeological Museum of Milos sits in the lower part of the village and holds a cast of the Venus de Milo alongside other finds from the island (the original, of course, is in the Louvre). The walk up from the car park through the village to the kastro takes about twenty minutes at a leisurely pace and is the best introduction to the island's character.