Great natural views

I flew to Madrid and four days later, I flew back. Nothing unusual about that. But in between I didn't just see Goyas and palacios, hang out in Retiro park or the city's many fine shops. Instead I saw snakes and vultures, mountain peaks and silent canyons, and I tore up miles of empty road.

I got burnt, scratched and tired. I even conquered the Great Wall of China. I had, in short, a proper adventure. Oh yeah, and I fell in love.

Tour operator Away From The Crowds specialises in ready-made miniature adventures in the Spanish heartland north of Madrid. Set up by brothers Javier and Jaime Bartolome, it features an original collection of cycling routes, hiking holidays, treks with donkeys and their signature escapade, a four-day, peak-skirting circular lap by Vespa.

Though the landscapes are the calibre of the Alpujarras, visitors rarely drop by. Flowery meadows and crimped fields give way to the indigo barrier wall of the Guadarrama mountain range, which segments the region into the states of Segovia and Guadalajara.

This is a personal operation, with all booking, transfers, driving and guiding currently done by the brothers. They grin with glee (authentic, not the plasticky travel agentsort) while describing the empty single-lane roads, winding mountain passes and a stretch they've nicknamed 'the Great Wall of China' for its terrifying steep paved zig-zags. I grin too, disguising my fear.

"Riding a Vespa is so easy, if you can ride a bike, it's just the same," promises Jaime (though you need a driving licence). Anna and I want to believe him. Our shiny new rides are wheeled out; custard yellow for Anna, ladybird red for me. I instantly fell in love with it.

Like i-Pods, Smeg fridges and Harleys they are a delectable piece of design. Infallibly cool. Even rubbish drivers can't diminish their iconic beauty.

And we were rubbish, at least at first. Practising in a village square the size of a sheep pen, the Vespas feel unwieldy, even turning the handlebars is a challenge. Despite these teething problems, this trip is a case of Easy Rider made easier. The route is already highlighted on the map, hotels are reserved, transport sorted. The guys (and a professional rescue service) were on stand-by in case anything went wrong. And every morning a pretty picnic basket was waiting at reception.

On our own at last, we notched up our speedometers from 20kph to 40kph. My body was no longer rigid from terror, and I started to lean into the turns. Potholes lose their evil powers. You can ride over them and not die, it transpires.

The luminous yellow ring on the map brought us to Navafria, a mountain village surrounded by pine forests. The instant we reached our manor house hotel, El Chorro, we crashed out - who'd have thought Vespa riding would be more exhausting than cycling?

This being Spain, there was time for a nap, a swim in the hotel pool, a sauna (oddly refreshing in the furnace like heat) and a walk before dinner. We scoffed thick hoops of calamari beneath a sky streaked the colour of raw meat. Javier called "Are we happy to continue tomorrow and confident about the mountain passes?"

"Yes, we believe we are," I said.

Quiet narrow roads take on roller-coaster qualities and we topped 60kph.

Thyme, rosemary and lavender scented the air. In the whitewashed village of Pradena del Rincon, we startled a herd of goats sheltering in the shade of a wall.

We started to climb the Sierra del Rincon, a biosphere reserve, taking the hairpin bends very slowly. At 2,000m above sea-level, these mountains aren't exactly Mont Blanc but the air is cooler, and the views across the plains into Guadalajara are stupendous.

Could that have been the 'Great Wall of China', I wondered after sweating down the descent. Despite the map, it seemed like we we're feeling our own way around and we briefly got lost at Corralejo, a creepy ghost village. Further on we tooke an icy dip in a river under a bridge.

But There's no mistaking the 'Great Wall of China' when we do hit it. It's the sort of road they'd film from a helicopter for Top Gear. Paved, with loose piles of slate forming not-very-safe-looking safety barriers, and steep as a death slide. But it's a right laugh. We had confidence. In fact, we felt exhilarated, and pretty cool. Vespas do that to you.

The days were filled with painting-perfect scenery and roads that make riding the Vespa even more fun until it's time to loop back west across the cereal plains of Castilla.

At last we found some long straight roads which we traveled at 90kph. The wind screamed and we had to pick dead flies off our faces a small price to pay for a weekend adventure with my new love.