To say that Gyeongju is an artistically and historically significant town would be an understatement. Located in southeastern Korea, it is an unassumingly pleasant little burg that boasts an amazing wealth of art and history.

The city that began as the capital of the Silla Kingdom in 57 B.C. and for nearly a thousand years served as the political and cultural center of the region is known today as Korea’s “museum without walls.” The appellation is due to its wealth of ancient Korean Buddhist art and architecture: a bounty so rich that Gyeongju is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site

Most visitors attending a meeting or convention in the area stay at one of the deluxe high-rise hotels on Bomun Lake, about 20 minutes from downtown Gyeongju. The resort area has a convention center, a casino, golf courses, shops, restaurants and an amusement park. A promenade winds by the hotels along the shores of a large man-made lake, and a fleet of whimsical duck boats provide excursions across the water.

Of all of Gyeongju’s treasures, perhaps the most impressive is the Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto. Set on the slopes of Mount T’oham, the site earned UNESCO World Heritage status in 1995. Originally built in A.D. 535, the temple endured invasions and fires that destroyed many of its wooden buildings (rebuilt over time), but the stone bridges, staircases and pagodas are original.

Carved into the hill above the temple, the Seokguram Grotto was constructed in the eighth century and is the town’s only completely intact structure from that period. It had been abandoned for centuries when, legend has it, in 1909 a traveling postman stumbled upon the site while seeking shelter from a rain shower. Imagine his amazement when he lit a candle to find he was sharing the cave with an enormous Buddha and a myriad of bas- and haut-relief sculptures.

The mounds lining the paths through Tumuli Park are more than just dirt: They are royal tombs from the Silla period. The Cheonmachong(Heavenly Horse Tomb), excavated in 1974, yielded a plethora of treasures. Today it’s open for viewing, giving visitors a sense of the size and construction of the tombs. A short walk from the tomb is the Cheomseongdae Observatory. Built in the seventh century, the bottle-shaped stone structure is Asia’s earliest-known existing observatory.

Another short walk will take you to Anapji Pond, an ancient picnic site where members of the royal family enjoyed a day outdoors. The pavilions have been rebuilt on the site where the originals would have stood.

To view treasures uncovered in various excavations in the Gyeongju area, stop by the Gyeongju National Museum (118 Iljeongro, tel 82 54 740 7518, http://gyeongjumuseum.go.kr). In addition to the 11-foothigh, 19-ton brass Divine Bell of King Seongdeok the Great, you’ll discover a golden crown and girdle from Cheonmachong Tomb and an impressive display of artifacts discovered when Anapji Pond was drained in the mid-1970s.

For more information, visit http://tour2korea.com