Pompeii is one of Europe’s best-known archaeological sites, and the EU has decided to allocate to this beautiful spot new funds to both ensure it is well protected and to increase its capacity for tourism. Not many people are aware that the UNESCO site of Pompeii has been under excavation to varying degrees since 1748. However, and unfortunately, exposure of the excavated site as well as poor excavation techniques mean that the site has deteriorated over time.

For this reason, the EU has decided to allocate new funds to support a project aiming to stop and reverse the deterioration of the site while consolidating disparate sites into a single excavated area thereby extending the useable area by 23.000 square meters. On top of that, the project, which comes under the European Regional Development Fund 2007-2013, is expected to attract an average of 200.000 extra visitors per year.