FIRST LEVEL MUSEUMS

Biscay   |  Guipuzcoa  |  Alava  |  Navarre  |  French Basque Country

Maritime Museum (Biarritz)
Located next to the Rocher de la Vierge, the museum has a contemporary, new, unique, and dynamic style. In it you can discover everything related to the sea and the occupation of fishing: fishing techniques and instruments, models of boats, marine birds, etc. The visit includes audiovisual presentations, slide projections, and interactive screens.

Bonnat Museum (Baiona)
Located in the heart of Bayonne, in a magnificent building from the end of the 19th century. The Bonnat Museum contains several municipal collections, among which are notable the paintings and sculptures collected by the painter Leon Bonnat. Bonnat assembled this collection between 1880 and 1900 and it contains works by the greatest artists, such as Rubens, El Greco, Rafael, Degas, and Watteau.

The Basque Home of Sara
It is a superb dwelling with six hundred square metres divided into three different levels, together with is nearby setting form bygone days: its typical hayrick, the garden the aplle orchard, the vineyard, a vegetable garden designed and replanted like in the 17th century, flax fields and so many other splendid things.

Our eye is next caught by the front view of the house with its timber structure and eaves so traditional in the area. The door opens to reveal the cide-making area.

The stairs, with banisters worn down for so long by so many comings and goings, lead us to the heart of the house: a large kitchen with polished furniture form the 17th and 18th centuries.

Chocolate Museum (Biarritz)
Created by the master chocolate maker Serge Couzigou, we find ourselves before the first museum which is dedicated entirely to the universe of chocolate. The museum offers various rooms which are dedicated to the history of chocolate in Baiona, to the making of chocolate, showing diverse machinery, chocolate sculptures and an introduction to the different flavours and smells of different chocolates.