The mighty St. Gallus church from the 17th to 18th century sits enthroned above the city. The church was constructed on a pre-Christian cult site and was redesigned on multiple occasions by the famous baroque master builders of the Bregenz Forest.
The church was built to the site of pre-Romanesque church founded around 450 AD. Irish monks Columbanus and his brother Gallus founded the destroyed church in 610 AD and ordered to rebuild it.
House of the Blackheads (Melngalvju nams) is a building situated in the old town of Riga. The original building was erected during the first third of the 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. Major works were done in the years 1580 and 1886, adding most of the ornaments.
The structure was bombed to a ruin by the Germans June 28, 1941 and the remains demolished by the Soviets in 1948. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999. Today the House of Blackheads serves as a museum and sometimes concert hall.