This month’s Arts Society lecture will be a Day of Special Interest held at the Comis Hotel.

Topics for the two lectures will be ‘Budapest - Diva of the Danube’ and ‘Vienna - A Waltz on the Danube’.

The event begins on Tuesday next week (October 17) at 10am for registration and coffee followed by lunch at 1pm and finishing at 3pm. It costs £45 per person with booking information on the Art Society’s website. Final date for booking is today (October 10).

Budapest, a fascinating mosaic of Central European influences from Habsburg to Turkish, from French to Slavic, is the ultimate turn of the century city, united only in 1872 by the building of the first bridge across the Danube between Buda and Pest.

Vienna’s turbulent history, meanwhile, has produced an amazing display of art and architecture.

The speaker will be Hugh B Ellwood, who has devoted his life to architecture and the arts. He studied philosophy in Rome, followed by a degree in architecture at Manchester University. He pursued a career in architecture for 31 years and became an external examiner for architecture at Manchester University and a visiting lecturer for architecture and the history of Art at the University of Central Lancashire.

He illustrates these lectures with his own photographs and sketches.