Bath is known for good shopping. I can just imagine wearing a giant hoop skirt in the 18th century, strolling down the gorgeous main street with an umbrella covering my fair complexion and spending all afternoon looking for new hats in the shiny shop windows. After all, near the city's oldest, still-operating hospital, across the street from Starbucks(!), you'll see the crest of Queen Victoria topping a building to signify the exact place where she dropped some pounds into the purchase of a pin during her one and only visit to Bath. So you see? Shopping is a main Bath pastime. Fast forward to the 21st century and you'd see me during my visit in my jeans with two boys attached to either hand. They're game to shop for about.... uh... an hour after I've bribed them with pastries! One is actually on the lookout for a gift for his mum (good man). So I'm excited when I see Lush on Union Street.
Lush is a bath-and-natural-beauty-aid company that got its start in the United Kingdom. Everything is made by hand with the freshest ingredients possible, and the bath fizzlers are absolutely wonderful. They look like little balls that you put into your tub, but they explode like Alka-Seltzers into delicious fragrances.
Here my little charge was able to find his mother a nice gift sure to please her. Granted, Lush is an international company now, but since it was British-grown, I think it counts more as "local."