Taking the evolution of tourism from its early stage to the present as a standpoint, this article intends to highlight those myths and stereotypes that have contributed to turn the Basque Country into a popular tourist resort for over a hundred and fifty years. Very heterogeneous people, encompassing at first well-off people followed by holiday-makers, as well as militant tourists and border tourists, among others, have been attracted to the area for different reasons. From romantic images tainted with folklorism and orientalism, as those put forward by the French writer Pierre Loti, to the Guggenheim phenomenon, different moments and tourist imagery have succeeded one another, pointing out different ways of seeing, different ways of being seen.