Where to Stay in Riverside, California

What is Riverside known for?

Riverside is known as a museum and heritage city in California, a place whose downtown gathers art, civic memory, and the houses of its early families. Its museums lead the draw. Culture and history shape its name, with the Riverside Art Museum and the Museum of Riverside standing near the civic core, the Harada House keeping the record of a landmark civil-rights case, and the Center for Social Justice and Civil Liberties holding that legacy among the downtown blocks.

What are the main landmarks in Riverside?

The main landmarks of Riverside gather in and around the downtown core. Museums lead the center. The Riverside Art Museum and the Museum of Riverside hold their galleries near the civic buildings, while the Harada House keeps the ground of a landmark civil-rights case, the Center for Social Justice and Civil Liberties carries that record downtown, the First Congregational Church of Riverside and the Universalist Unitarian Church of Riverside mark the early congregations among the streets, and Spring Rancheria records the older heritage of the land.

What is the history of Riverside?

Riverside grew from a colony settlement founded in 1870 on the inland plain of California, a planned town whose grid was drawn out for its first settlers. The plan came first. The founders laid the streets and the civic square before the orchards spread across the surrounding land, and the early families built the homes and churches that still mark the older blocks of the city.

Houses and institutions from the founding decades still stand across the center. The Harada House keeps the ground of a landmark civil-rights case that reached the courts of the early century, and the Peter J. Weber House marks the work of a noted local architect. The First Congregational Church of Riverside and the First Church of Christ, Scientist rose among the early congregations, while the Museum of Riverside gathered the record of the colony and the growth of the city around the downtown core.

Where is Riverside?

Riverside sits on the inland plain of California, where the level ground of the downtown core gives way to the low hills and ridges that ring the valley. The land lies broad and open. The downtown blocks around the Riverside Art Museum stand on the flat of the plain, and the residential streets spread out from the center, while the ridges rise beyond the edges of the city and the orchards once ran across the surrounding land.

What is the climate of Riverside?

Riverside has a warm Mediterranean climate in inland California, with hot dry summers and mild winters. Riverside's summers stretch long and dry. The warm months bring clear skies and heat across the plain and the surrounding ridges, while the winters stay mild with the season's rain, and the dry heat holds through much of the year over the downtown core and the residential streets.

How do you get to Riverside?

Riverside is reached by road, rail, and air, a hub of inland California where the freeways cross. Most who come reach Riverside by freeway. The corridors meet near the city where the routes running east and west cross the roads heading north and south, and the downtown center with the Riverside Art Museum sits a short distance from the interchange and the approaches into the city.