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The [ancient / ancestor] city of Pompeii near Naples, Italy, receives hundreds of [thousands / thousand] of tourists every year. It is one of Italy's [topped / top] tourist destinations. Most tourists leave the 2,000-year-old site with happy [memory / memories] , photos and souvenirs. However, some visitors take [more / most] . They take historic relics from the city – things [like / alike] small statues, stones or mosaic tiles. However, many of these people are now [regrets / regretting] their actions. They say the relics are cursed and have [filled / filling] their lives with bad luck since bringing them home. A senior official at Pompeii said he has had hundreds of packages from across the world from people returning [what / that] they had taken. Many people apologised and wrote [stories / story] about their bad luck.

The senior official, Massimo Osanna, told reporters [around / about] some of the stories he had received. One man from Latin America explained that his life [was / had] full of traumas after he got home from Italy with a small tile he [has / had] put in his pocket. A person from Spain returned five packages containing [stolen / stealing] items, including a bronze statue that [gone / went] missing in 1987. The writer complained that the statue had put, "a curse [in / on] his entire family". Mr Osanna is [thinking / thought] about setting up an exhibition of [all / whole] the letters he has received. He explained that the letters might be [most / more] interesting than the relics. He said: "It's not that the stolen pieces are [highly / high] interesting or valuable. It's more the letters."