Ios Town is also know as The Village or Hora. Ios Town is on the hill above Ormos and walkable depending on baggage. Taxis, buses and donkeys make the trip as well. The wide steps were originally designed for donkeys and are a nice touch when hordes of hungry tourists are all trying to ascend immediately after docking.
By
common consensus Ios Town is one of the nicest cycladic towns
in existence with pretty, white washed stone houses, stone flagged streets
and palm trees offering shade. Twelve windmills stand outside the town.
Of the Castle of Marco Crispi built 1400, and Venetian ruler of the
island, little remains. The ancient town has traces of its walls visible
if you look hard enough. Near the Castle, you can see the Panagia Gremiotissa (Our Lady of the Cliffs) with a miraculous icon
that floated to Ios from Crete. This icon is housed in the only spot on Ios where visibility sometimes allows a glimpse of Crete.
A new theater offering concerts and culture has been built in Ios Town. The town, however, is not a typical, traditional, Cycladic one steeped in Greece's past...it's full of fast food restaurants, bars, discos and geared to party. It has some great juke boxes with hard to find classics to recommend it as well.
There's an archaeological museum in Hora in the town hall. There are some interesting historical exibits and it's free.