One of the many great things about touring with a company like Viking River/Ocean Tours is the quality of their local tour guides. Everywhere you go on a Viking Cruise, once you disembark to take a local tour of the area, you are greeted by local tour guides who are excellent in what they do. Knowledgeable, funny and very professional in telling you about their hometown, history, culture and backgrounds, these guides are the equivalent of taking a college course in the subject matter that they describe to you.
As shown here, Pam and I did an excursion down the Greek coast from Athens to the Cape of Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon. Along the way, our tour guide Elenia did a great job telling us all about the Greek history, their gods, culture and philosophers.
Once at the Cape, Elenia dismissed our group to go and tour the Temple. She then proceeded to tell Pam and me all about how Greeks developed the “cracy’s” which formed the basis of several systems of government and organizational systems such as aristocracy, democracy, autocracy, plutocracy and bureaucracy. She continued by discussing Plato and his duality of man (click here) and how it formed the basis of several philosophical movements following his groundbreaking theories on the subject. As stated, it was like a fire hose course in Greek culture and philosophy. At Elenia’s suggestion, Pam bought the following book in the gift shop.
Speaking of the duality of man, Bruce’s divorce song on the subject comes to mind. Funny, but when I was going thru my divorce doo-dahs back then, this tune was not in my playlist. However, as I look back back now, I can see that maybe it should have been: