Bargain breaks - May bank holiday offers

Right - there are only two weeks until the first May bank holiday, so if you're looking to go away, it's time to get to it, sharpish. Last week, you may remember, was UK breaks, so this week we are setting our sights on fair foreign shores - and most of all, cheap holidays.

Our first port of call is the Eurostar. Sadly its fantastic £59-return tickets have all been snapped up for the bank holiday (although there is still some availability throughout May - go to it) but even so there seem to be plenty of seats from £69 (one-way) up. The charms of Paris may be timeless, but should you need tempting elsewhere, there is the Short Film Festival until May 10 in Brussels, and, come May 1, in Lille they will all be celebrating... soup, with a festival known as La Louche d'Or (the Golden Ladle).

Heading further afield (and for longer) with Lastminute.com, we have seven-nights all-inclusive in Sharm el-Sheikh from £499 per person, seven-nights all-inclusive/B&B/half-board in Port El Kantaoui, Tunisia, from £349 per person, and seven nights B&B/half-board/self-catering in Altinkum, Turkey, from £380 per person. And, if you're thinking short and sweet, there are also city breaks: two nights in Amsterdam, including return flights and a four-star hotel, is £400 for two, for example.

The Co-operative Travel, as you might expect, has a number of cheap deals over the bank holiday period. Packages to the Costa del Sol range from £263.94 per person to £385.31, not including flights.

Finally, if you were hoping to escape further still ... you might want to consider a mini-break in New York. It's good value over the bank holiday period, too: American Airlines has flights from £278 per person, Delta from £284, Continental from £299, and Virgin Atlantic from £314.