Squeezing in a white-knuckle ride

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As you careen along the narrow road between Positano and Amalfi on a hairpin turn, a rocky wall on one side and a 100-foot cliff on the other, you hold your breath at the sight of a tour bus filled with tourists coming directly at you.
Is this how I'm going to die? you think. But a second later, the tour bus skids to a halt, you manage to squeeze along the guardrail, bend in your car's side mirror and everything looks as if it's going to work out, if just barely. That is, until the couple on the scooter comes roaring through the gap, honking their horn.
The Amalfi coast is widely considered one of the most beautiful sights on Earth, with homes perched precariously on cliff faces, quiet coves sheltering remote beaches and the kind of astounding sunsets you thought they were faking on the postcard photos. To get there, or to get anywhere, however, you have to make your way along one of the most dangerous drives known to man. Statale 163 -- the Amalfi Drive -- winds the entire southern length of the Sorrentine peninsula, with the Gulf of Salerno spreading out below and the Lattari mountains jutting above.
It's about 50 miles long. Not one of those miles is straight.
Walking along the narrow road can be almost as nerve-racking, with cars coming in both directions, and with few sidewalks, it seemed it would be easy, if not inevitable, that we'd get clipped by a passing mirror. There were no warning honks, just an engine roar and breeze as a motorist passed just inches from your shoulder.
The locals drive the narrow lanes without any outward sign of fear, breezing through without a second thought. And Italian pedestrians stroll, sometimes pushing baby carriages, with total and casual disinterest. At night, locals actually jog along the dimly lighted, congested, fast-paced roads, literally running for their lives as they dodge traffic. They couldn't care less. And they might have something there: In five days of driving, we didn't see one serious accident. Everyone involved seemed to know exactly how to back off before metal hit metal, a new game of chicken around each corner. The only really dangerous drivers on the road seemed to be the tourists in their rental cars, constantly skidding to unnecessary stops and flinching at the sight of oncoming cars. (Just imagine how worse it would be if the Italians drove on the left side of the road like the Brits.)
While having a rental car along the Amalfi coast can add a little spontaneity to a vacation, it can put gray hairs on the head and take years off a marriage. And while passengers can take in the world-famous views, most tourist drivers I saw coming in my direction were too busy watching their lives flash before their eyes to marvel at a sunset.
Were we to go again, I'd spend my next trip looking down from Amalfi Drive from the safety of a tour bus.

(Peter McKay is a free-lance writer and nationally syndicated columnist who writes the weekly Homemaking column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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