When I was a kid we didn't have a television and I was probably about 10 years old before we got one. My friend, Vin Garbutt, in the introduction to one of his songs, used to talk about how we got all our values and judgements from our parents, extended family and then school teachers. With every child now having a television in their room and owning an iPhone or tablet with access to the internet, parents no longer have exclusive influence over their children and cannot supervise where and who they are getting their information and their values from.

I was thinking of this when we were in Santorini last week.

If you travel somewhere now, you get on to Google and everything you need or want to know is there. What hotel to go to, where to eat, where to get the bus, even the name of the bus driver! (Or, in our case, the harbourmaster!) Valuable information of course but for those of us with an obsessive disposition, this means I can't go anywhere and just have a look round. I have to google it, read about it in Lonely Planet, read the reviews on Trip Advisor. I'm frightened I will miss something. The best view, the best restaurant, the best travel experience.

So I looked up Santorini on Trip Adviser to find out where would be a good place to eat. One of the top five restaurants was Restaurante Pizza Edwin. A reviewer had written "We tried the Santorini pizza made with tomatoes, feta, zucchini and caper leaves all sourced from the island on homemade dough. We are huge pizza snobs and this pizza is right up there with the best we've ever had" My sort of pizza so we had to go there! It was a nice pizza. I enjoyed it but 'right up there'?? She needs to go to one of the Italians in Sydney or New York or any in Italy! I think there's one on Gloucester Road in Bristol that takes some beating too!

Another review on Trip Adviser was about the sunset in Oia ' a must in Santorini. Beautiful view, and incomparable atmosphere. The perfect place for a romantic photo. Sunsets are beautiful basically everywhere in Santorini but this one is one of a kind'. Patently not true as discussed in my previous blog!

On one of the online travel guides, the author wrote "Santorini is the most popular island in Greece. It may be the most popular island in the world. There are few travel destinations that combine beautiful beaches spectacular scenery, ancient cities, amazing restaurants, some the world's best wine and an active volcano". All true of course (except perhaps the wine bit) but he was staying at one of the best locations on Santorini as a guest of the hotel owner. You know what I'm saying.

I don't know what I'm saying actually but perhaps the above may be some of the reasons that we want to go to Santorini. Because people we've never met, whose values we don't know and who don't know us, have told us we have to.