The Musée Basque is the principal museum of Basque culture, history, and material life — a serious and well-designed collection that covers everything from traditional architecture and fishing to the foral laws that gave the Basque Country its distinctive political character. The museum occupies the Maison Dagourette, a 16th-century mansion on the banks of the Nive in Petit Bayonne.
The collection covers Basque culture on both sides of the Pyrenees, from prehistoric times to the 20th century. Exhibits include traditional dress, boats, furniture, tools, and religious art. There is also extensive material on the history of Bayonne itself — the port trade, the whaling industry that took Basque sailors to Newfoundland and the Arctic, and the chocolate-making tradition. It is a genuinely interesting museum, not merely a catalogue of objects, and the building itself is one of the handsomest in the city.