The Musée National des Douanes occupies a fitting address on Place de la Bourse, where Bordeaux's river trade, taxes, smuggling, and state power all met. Its collections use uniforms, seized goods, models, documents, and objects from customs work to tell a surprisingly broad story about borders and commerce.
It is a specialist museum, not one of Bordeaux's first stops, but the setting makes it easy to add when you are already near the riverfront and Miroir d'eau. The best reason to go is that it explains a side of port-city history that grand facades usually leave invisible.