Jonny McCambridge: Bus trip along Amalfi Coast brings back memories of my wedding day

I could write a book about the quirky things that captured my attention about the area - the rugby ball-sized lemons, the brightly-coloured hand-painted ceramics, the limoncello, the trattorias serving the best pizza in the world, the narrow streets where we could spend hours dandering aimlessly browsing the shops, the bustling piazzas. And then there were the roads.

I maintain a phobia about driving abroad. Beyond that, let me state this clearly; I think I would be prepared to endure any ordeal, suffer any torture, grapple with any misfortune before I could possibly be persuaded to get behind the wheel of a car in southern Italy.

As our crystal wedding anniversary approaches, we are back on the Amalfi Coast, introducing our son to the area. Our coach is winding its way along a steep and narrow road.

Out of the window I can see the magnificent sight of Mount Vesuvius towering over the bay of Naples in the distance.

The very fact that roads exist at all in this mountainous, rocky terrain is a marvel of engineering. Built many years ago, they go up, over, across and occasionally through and under the cliffs. It would be an understatement to declare they were constructed for a time when there was less traffic.

We pass through Positano, as Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren once did, and where the houses seem to grow out of the very cliffs. Multiple mobile phones are quickly produced to record videos and photographs through the bus windows. Soon, the picturesque town is left behind and we are again climbing upwards.

A bit further north the Romans were once famed for building straight roads. This is the other extreme. The route winds and curves its way through a series of small settlements, all the while clinging precariously to the side of the mountain.

We are sitting at the back of the coach and can often see hundreds of feet down to the crashing waves of the shore below.

So narrow is the road that it feels like the rear of the vehicle is hanging over the edge of the precipe. The sensation is at once both beautiful and unsettling.

The main issue, however, is the traffic. The area has become increasingly popular with tourists. While it was busy when I got married here, now there is a feeling that the volume of vehicles on the route has reached a tipping point. A continual stream of large sightseeing coaches now pass along the Amalfi Coast road in both directions at all hours. In many places the road is so narrow that there is barely enough space for one vehicle.

This has led to the development of an entirely different style of driving, one that the local coach drivers are expert at. It is completely at odds from everything you would do when driving on a wide, expansive motorway. The bus rarely gets beyond the speed of a steady crawl and there is the constant expectation that you will encounter another coach coming around the next blind corner.

In one small village we come to a standstill. Not only is there a coach approaching in the opposite direction, but an ancient truck is blocking the road while delivering melons to a shop. In an impressive feat of navigation our driver reverses up the hill and around a corner to ease the flow. As ever, when two large vehicles reach an impasse here, there is a steady stream of mopeds darting through the tiny gaps between, refusing to wait until a safer moment to pass. At one point I cover my eyes with my hands, so certain am I that a small motorbike will be crushed between the two giants.

I think again of my wedding day in 2009. We got married in a tiny and quiet village high in the mountains called Ravello. As it was an afternoon affair and I was forbidden to see my wife-to-be ahead of the service, I got a public bus down to the busier town of Amalfi in the morning, to visit some family members who had arrived.

I got the later bus back to Ravello, still with plenty of time before going to church. Predictably, I got stuck in a traffic jam, with two seemingly intractable lines of cars meeting on the narrow road. For a few nervous minutes I had to consider how I would explain to my partner that I had missed our wedding as I had decided to take a trip and had ended up stranded on a bus.

I need not have worried. The driver on the little bus had seen it all hundreds of times before. He directed both lines of traffic, forward a bit, back a bit, until the blockage was resolved and I was again on my way towards the church.

Now, 15 years later, I am stuck once again and watching another Amalfi Coast driver do the same thing. This time my wife and son are on the bus alongside me.

It occurs to me that perhaps there is a lesson from driving on these roads, Maybe it is a bit like a marriage. You keep moving forward, sometimes you are lucky enough to gather some of speed, although more often you are reduced to a crawl, but you keep working at trying to make progress.

Just occasionally, however, you get stuck. That is when you maybe have to back up a bit, give way, work in tandem with the person on the other side until the flow is restored. A little bit of teamwork and you get to where you need to be.