My visit typically begins with a complimentary airport pickup from Yodia Heritage Hotel, a beautiful boutique hotel that sits along the banks of the river Nan. This top-ranked hotel gets better with each of my visits. Beautifully appointed with understated Thai design, their Heritage Suites offer direct-from-your-bedroom access to a lap pool. A great restaurant and welcoming, warm hospitality all help make the Yodia Heritage my in-town home away from home. But most importantly, a walk five minutes away is the city’s top sight—Wat Phra Sri Rattana Mahathat, a large temple complex known simply as Wat Yai, that houses the Phra Buddha Chinnarat. This spectacular image of Buddha, dating from 1357, is perhaps second in importance only to the famous Emerald Buddha housed in Bangkok’s Grand Palace complex.

To view the dazzling, golden Buddha image cast in bronze, pilgrims and visitors alike now make their way through two magnificent mother-of-pearl inlaid doors, said to date to 1756. Cast in a style known as late Sukhothai, the Buddha image is striking in the use of a flame-like halo around the image’s head and body. Outside the peaceful sanctuary, a temple fair atmosphere prevails. Offerings of lotus flowers abound. Hungry temple visitors are busy shopping. Balloons, souvenirs and an assortment of Thai snacks are on sale, from sun-dried bananas to bamboo containers of a refreshing drink made from palm sugar.

Other local sights I take in include the Sergeant-Major Dr. Thawee Burnakhet Folklore Museum, which showcases everything from ancient pottery and kitchen utensils to a collection of antique and ingenious traps for catching household flies and even snakes. At the Buranatha Buddha Foundry, I watch workers busy casting in bronze giant replicas of the town’s most famous Buddha image. I later join Peangpanor Boonklum, a lawyer, and her sister, Nongnuch, a Naresuan University faculty member, two Phitsanulok natives behind the Yodia Heritage Boutique Hotel, on a road trip to Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park. The mountain park is a mix of forest, wildflowers and hiking trails passing strangely shaped boulders, jutting rocks and mysterious crevices that once provided hiding places for the People’s Liberation Army of Thailand.

Another easy road trip from Phitsanulok takes me to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Sukhothai, an ancient Thai capital, and the Sukhothaiera towns of Si Satchanalai and Kamphaeng Phet, all dating back to the 13^th and 14^th centuries. At Si Satchanalai, I see weathered images of Buddha, stone elephants and sculpted pillars amidst sugar palm trees. Khmer ruins and ancient ceramic kilns also dot the site.

But enough of the sights. Let’s eat! Friends Brent Martinez from the Philippines and Srisamrit Supaprasert and the Boonklum sisters show me some of what the city has to offer. Spicy Thai-style hot pot. Grilled prawns. Thai beer and popcorn, and Saturday drinks at a Thai country and western bar. At the city’s Night Bazaar and at riverside restaurants, including some on houseboats, local eateries serve up home-style Thai cooking. A few restaurants delight visitors with “flying-in-the-sky morning glory.” Here, cooks stir fry up a plate of pak boon, or morning glory, and hurl it into the air onto an awaiting dinner plate. Another afternoon, I stop at one of Phitsanulok’s “hanging legs” noodle shops. Steaming hot bowls of noodles are served to diners seated on raised wooden platforms, with their feet swinging freely and dangling below. Decide on the noodles and the broth —perhaps a spicy tom yum—and then slurp away.

Then it’s off to the airport. “Phra Buddha Chinnarat is the most beautiful and stunning Buddha image,” says Peangpanor to me, “and has become one of the most popular ones that Thai people have at home or in their work places.” Indeed. I have one, too, bought from the temple grounds to remind me of the spiritual heart of Phitsanulok until my next return trip.