European Commissioner
for Regional Policy Corina Cretu on Thursday said the
105-million-euro Great Pompeii Project has set the example,
addressing a press conference on the state of progress of work
to restore and revamp the ancient Roman archaeological site.
"We have reached our objective: we wanted to get a higher
number of visitors compared to the period prior to damages and
we have arrived at three million visitors", she said of the
part-EU funded project to safeguard the unique site created when
Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, preserving the entire city in
ash.
"We made it".
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini told the press conference
that Pompeii represented "the symbol of a history of redemption"
after falling into disrepair with ruins suffering from lack of
investment and mismanagement.
A wall last month collapsed at the archaeological site, at
the House of the Citharede (Casa del Citarista), in the last
area of the so-called 'Regions' set to be restored in the Great
Pompeii Project.
It was the latest in a string of collapses in recent years.
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