Corfu scooter tour: A guide to exploring one of Greece's most popular islands by Vespa

You get to choose your own adventure on a scooter in Corfu. That street to the right, snaking down towards the pebbly coastline, is an adventure. That road to the left, winding through switchbacks up a steep hill, is another.

These opportunities whiz past constantly, choices, quests. Take that turn. No, that one. Or just continue on the road ahead.

Already today I've lain on a beach beneath a steep, wooded hillside. I've explored rockpools, crystal-clear. I've drunk coffee on a shady patio. I've wandered through villages. I've stopped at an old portside taverna for grilled seafood and salad.

And I've done all of this thanks to my bright red stallion, a Vespa 150, an Italian scooter that seems to fit in just fine in these Ionian climes. This is the way to see Corfu, or any island for that matter: the sun on your skin, the wind in your hair (this is figurative – you've seen my bio photo), the smell of sea salt and wildflowers and grilled meats in the air.

A scooter is sweet freedom. The chance to choose your own adventure.

I hired this particular beauty from Corfu Town near the port where my cruise ship, the Emerald Azzurra, is waiting. This, for me, is the chance to go off-piste from the cruise experience, to forgo the guided city tour included in our itinerary and instead blaze my own trail, to bid the ship and its passengers goodbye for the day and putter off into the wild blue yonder.

For a while, however, that yonder is just wild. The area to the north-west of Corfu Town is largely industrial and unpleasant, with a dual-lane highway leading motorists out to nicer parts of the island. You start to experience that only once you lean into a right-hand turn on the road towards Dassia, and the bustle of the outskirts begins to give way to Corfu's true splendour.

The road from here hugs the perimeter of the island, a winding pathway that hangs above the rugged coast, following its contours, making sharp turns and easing through gentle bends. It passes busy beaches such as Ipsos and Barbati, where swimsuited tourists carry towels and umbrellas, before tracking countless little bays, each with a village surrounding shimmering waters.