The tourist influx is noticeable now, but there's an interesting exodus going on, also. One of the most tangible changes in Rome over this weekend and into the Bank Holiday Monday will be the migration of the media pack after weeks - sometimes months - filling hotels and setting up a base-camp out near the Vatican.

As the story has moved on, the mighty small city of satellite-dishes and outside broadcast vehicles, which had become part of the contemporary Tiber landscape, will move on also after Pope Benedict's first mass on Sunday. Unlike newspapers charting the recent events, which are still picked up by the breeze coming off the Tober, the vast output from the terrestial and satellite stations is up there with the white smoke, in the ether.

Last night I spent a few hours in a private club in Trastevere. It is one of a few "homes" for various journalists and TV crews in town, hardly more so than as a place to unwind after this long assignment. It was a fun night but also something of a farewell party, a rite of passage something like a wrap party at the end of a feature film shoot. Some of course won't be leaving; they make up the large group of international journalists and crew permanently based here. Many will see each other again in Iraq and other locations. I am keen to hear more from those who were posted in Rome for the long haul. How did this event, its intensity and its duration, affect them? I have to state an interest here as I was a TV journalist before studying archaeology, and have now returned to broadcasting via the BBC. So I often wear two hats (as discussed in "Mixed Messages", 2001) http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/research/publication/JPA4.htm.

I am fortunate to be able to continue this dialogue with UK journalist Sophie Arie, who is a neighbour of mine. She writes for the Guardian in the UK, and is Rome correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. See some of her recent coverage http://www.pelicanfile.com/reporter.cfm/ReporterID/3176.cfm and in broadcast http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/03/20050331_b_main.asp and

Anyway, this Sunday I'll be hearing Pope Benedict's first mass over the airwaves and not in situ, as I will be at the Roman seaside...when I return on Tuesday, I guess I will go survey that presumably-deconstructed Tiber media space, and see what evidence remains.

Reading Papal material culture