for christmas i gave my father and his significant other vouchers for several activities in vienna as a present. one of those activities was a visit to the natural history museum in vienna, including a tour on the roof of the museum. all of us had not seen that before. but first was a tour through the really huge building. nina and i have been here recently to visit the special exhibition called "cat's cradle & lion's den" showing the influence of cats in different eras up to today; meow. besides all the exhibits shown, the building itself is also very impressive. since everything is so big and would consume so much time if you would really take your time to see every little piece in detail, we did not get very far on the floor we started. then we started the tour to the roof of the museum. the weather was perfect, and we were a group of about 15 people. our guide was leading us upstairs, and through hallways and corridors to doors, usually closed to visitors, we made our way up to the attic to get to the door that would lead us outside onto the roof. once through the door, we went along the edge of the building, where loads of statues were placed. from below you notice there are some, but not that it is so many. the guide picked out a few important ones to describe them in more detail; who they were, why they were important at the time of erecting this museum, and thus ended up here. from the top of the museum one has a magnificent view over the surrounding area, as it is amongst the higher buildings here in the centre of the capital. we also got a glimpse into office rooms that seem to be located up here. i imagine having my desk here, would be pretty nice, although i can imagine it is getting pretty hot up here in summer with all the tin that is covering the roof. also, the wind was pretty strong, so opening the window might result in strong gusts, possibly wreaking havoc on ones desk. unfortunately the tour ended way too fast, and we had to get into the building again. there we continued our tour through the museum and managed to look through a small portion of the exhibits on one half of the first floor. we had a coffee in the cafe inside the museum, and then we decided to call it a day. nina and i considered buying an annual season ticket, since it is a good price to have a closer look and taking more time. i wonder if one year is enough to get really every little detail in here. well, maybe we will find out. so, if you ever get a chance to take the roof top tour in the nhm, do it - it really is a great experience. and if you do not get a chance for the root top tour, go to the nhm anyways.