Me and my boyfriend went on a mountain-biking holiday back in May 2000 and I still have the memories warming my heart. It really was a perfect time. We were looking for something a little bit different to do for our summer break, perhaps including some sort of activity.

What I found most appealing was the fact that they claimed riders of any level would enjoy the Greek and Alpine holidays (the Canadian and Costa Rican holidays include some more challenging routes). My boyfriend has a certain amount of cycling experience in that he cycles to work every day. While I enjoy bike rides, I wouldn't call myself super-fit. And neither of us had done any mountain-biking. They merely require you to be reasonably fit and healthy, ie not about to fall over with a heart condition.

Included in the payment for the holiday are air fares (inc. taxes), hotel accommodation, bike hire (inc. crash helmet, puncture repair kit and water bottle) and guided tours with Jeep back-up. Any time you feel you can't manage the ride, you are welcome to hitch a lift (an option I took on more than one occasion)!! At this time, we paid just short of £500 for 5 nights.

We received plenty of documentation before our holiday, enough brochures to whet our appetites and early confirmation of bookings, via e-mail and all the final documents came in the post a couple of weeks before departure. The holiday company is run informally and efficiently. I never felt any trepidation at having booked my first holiday entirely online.

Arriving at the hotel in Nidri (in Lefkas, one of the Ionian islands), we were delighted to find that it was situated right on the beach. The room was simple, with twin beds that we pushed together, white walls and tiled floors. A bathroom with toilet and shower was en-suite. One thing about Greece is that you can't flush loo-paper or it clogs the whole system - fortunately they provided a bin and emptied it every day!!! The shower would only be warm at certain times of the day due to most heating being solar-powered but I don't find this sort of thing a problem. And whenever I took showers I was not disappointed with the temperature.

Each day we were escorted on round trips of between 20 and 30 miles. Sometimes it was a light journey through olive groves, sometimes a gruelling mountain climb. The satisfaction of pedalling all the way to the top, to view the landscape beneath, and then cycle down, was immense. One day we had a ferry ride to Meganissi, and were left to cycle round with maps, taking whichever route we fancied. Another day we took a ride into Lefkas Town. Unlike the village of Nidri, which was a tourist-oriented harbour, they didn't speak much English but we fumbled through. We had a great time in the Gramophone museum there: a tiny room crammed with assorted memorabilia, where we had a running commentary (in Greek) from the proprietor!

We also had a cycle to the waterfall I mentioned earlier, a treasurous ascent along the water system, climbing boulders with our bikes. Well worth the trek, as the remote idyll waiting at the end was a delicious place to rest. And the trip to the even more remote cafe in the hills was amazing where we had the strongest Greek coffee and hung out with the locals. And the picnic that Martin and Jenny, our tour guides took us on was fantastic, set in the monastic ruins at the top of another mountain. They prepared our food, all vegetarian as the other couple, Mark and Stevie, also didn't eat meat. We were approached by a tramp who appeared to dwell there, and who spoke a bizarre mixture of French, Italian, Greek and German! A character!

Martin waited for Jenny to get down as she had the First Aid kit. They had medi-strips which negate the need for stitches in all but the most serious gashes. I have a far smaller scar on my chin than I would if they hadn't attended to me so efficiently. They made me stop for a moment and recover from shock. I was so full of adrenalin I would've carried on straight away - I was glad of their level-headedness. We cycled on the deserted beach we were visiting, chilled out there for a bit. On the way back again, I would have cycled on but felt as though the wind had been taken out of my sails, as it were, and so hitched a ride in the jeep with Martin. They told me many times over how brave I was, how more 'professional' riders have been known to make way more of a fuss than I did. So I glowed with the praise I received. And smarted with the cuts and scrapes!

On our days out, Nidri is a beautiful place, as is the whole of Lefkas (also known as Lefkada). The people are really warm and friendly. The island is quite lush as they get a fair amount of rainfall along with the glorious sunshine. The beaches are clean and underpopulated. Nidri's harbour is peppered with restaurants and bars, and the High Street which runs parallel to the Harbour stretch has a small choice of tourist shops, supermarkets and clothes shops and more bars. All you could need on a summer holiday is here, so even if you didn't fancy an adventure holiday, it's still a lovely place to visit. Anything from 5 days to a fortnight wouuld not get boring. After all, the Ouzo is only 30p a bottle, and that would keep me happy wherever I was!