205 Visit Mission Inn Hotel & Spa A stay at the Mission Inn is about as close as any of us will ever get to spending a night at Hearst Castle. The Riverside hotel traces its origins to a boarding house that opened in 1876, but this historic landmark seems much older than that. Look up to the tile-covered domes, towers, minarets, and graceful archways at this Mission Revival compound that covers a downtown block, and it's easy to pretend you're in an 18th-century castle in Spain. 168 | VISITCALIFORNIA.COM A staircase spirals up several levels of the International Rotunda while the treasures of this hotel, a survivor from Southern California's citrus-growing heyday when Riverside was one of the country's wealthiest cities, include Tiffany windows and a Spanish bell that dates to 1247. There's even an oversized wooden chair crafted for 330-pound President William Howard Taft, one of 10 American presidents who have visited. PREVIOUS SPREAD: MICHAEL SLEZAK; THIS PAGE: COURTESY MISSION INN HOTEL & SPA inland empirehttp://www.VISITCALIFORNIA.COM