Omnivore's Delight - NYTimes.com The first thing you are meant to see when you arrive in Tongeren, which bills itself as the oldest town in Belgium, is a statue of Ambiorix, the leader of the Eburones, the hometown tribe that defeated the Romans circa 55 B.C. But for some reason I miss this landmark in favor of a humongous branch of H&M dominating the village square. But no matter! I am not in town to discover the ancient roots of this little city (though there is an adorable medieval area called the Béguinage). The reason for my visit to this burg - an hour or so from both the Dries Van Noten shop in Antwerp and Neuhaus in Brussels - is that every Sunday the town turns into a giant flea market, an extravaganza reportedly stuffed with incredible bargains. It's a dealers" destination that many of the most assiduous market fanatics know nothing about (including me, until very recently). Booths line two squares and crowd the old streets, others colonize a warehouse and a parking garage, and a fair number are ensconced directly opposite that town's Roman wall. At 7 a.m. the view of the square from the Ambiotel's breakfast room is bleak - no one seems to be in a big hurry to start selling. But an hour later the tents have gone up, and pretty soon everything from breakfast bowls to breakfronts is moldering under the moody northern sky. And indeed, as rumored, the prices are divine. Unfortunately, the furniture is the best buy - about $395 for an elaborate Empire desk; glass-front bookcases for $120 - but of course then you must devise a plan to schlep these behemoths home. I am not up to this. Instead, I apply myself enthusiastically to the alluring bits and bobs for sale across from the Roman wall: wooden baby shoe molds, apothecary jars, stacks of perfectly starched and pressed linens. I am sorely tempted by a creepy little plaque dedicated to the late Soeur Bernadette for $45, only vaguely put off by the fact that I am Jewish (which hasn't prevented me from having a keepsake from Lourdes depicting a stack of crutches, purchased at the Porte de Vanves market in Paris, currently on my living room wall). I am in no rush to decide, though maybe I should be. By noon the approximately 400 dealers in town every week are packing up, and by 1:30 Tongeren is, if not a ghost town, a place where the most interesting shop is the Moonlight goth store. Luckily I haven't squandered $45 on a dead nun memento, because when I enter the garage, I find a host of dealers with deeply fashionable merchandise, including stacks of vintage leather luggage, a mid-20th-century ocelot coat (just try getting it through customs), boxfuls of Chanel and Hermès scarves for around $130 each and a thrilling collection of midcentury handbags with Belgian provenances. These gorgeous satchels make the perfect souvenir: they're chic, they're local, and they're priced mostly around $265, even when they are made of exotic skins. I deeply wish for a Delvaux, the venerable firm that is the Louis Vuitton of Belgium, but here they are invariably mumsy and dowdy, at least in comparison with the bag I fall for: a capacious crocodile Gladstone with silver hardware that is stamped, in gold, "Louise Fontaine Bruxelles," for about $300. Once I start spending, I don't stop, and pretty soon my new old bag is joined by a pair of miniature celluloid fräuleins in plaid Pradaesque dresses ($25 for the pair), a couple of Delft jugs ($45 each) and a cookie tin bearing the likenesses of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola (a ridiculous $7). As the town begins to turn back into a pumpkin, I repair to the Tinto brasserie for a fancyish lunch. When the waiter, who looks about 14 and has a pierced eyebrow, hears me talking, he says, "You're from America? New York? Why would you come here? It's so boring! Guess he doesn't collect royalty tins or crocodile bags.