ANTWERP wakes up late and languorously on a Sunday. At 10 a.m. on a balmy April morning, waiters were just setting up the outdoor tables along the normally bustling Hoogstraat, which leads from the Grote Markt to Sint-Jansvliet.

Here, the small Sunday morning flea market was also still getting started, as vendors unpacked items that might have appealed to anyone with a penchant for taxidermy (a haughty-looking fox walking on its hind legs was the easy favorite) or a first edition, in Dutch, of Judith Krantz's “Der Dochter van Mistral.”

Bourgeois in the best sense, the busy harbor of Antwerp has long been prime hunting ground for antiques lovers. Centuries at the intersection of thriving commerce, refined taste and access to the best of the world's markets can do that to a city.

But with the United States dollar practically drowning against the euro, the charms of this Flemish city's posh antiques shops can seem a bit out of reach. Thank goodness there's Kloosterstraat, a milelong stretch of quirky (and much less pricey) antiques shops, all-day cafes, and ethnic restaurants that physically and metaphorically link the densely packed ancient heart of the city with the tonier southern end.

Best of all, Kloosterstraat is not just open on Sundays — when most retail establishments beyond newspaper sellers and souvenir shops are closed. It becomes a daylong party that attracts locals and visitors alike.

Since the shops open at the highly civilized hour of 2 p.m., the intervening hours can be well spent recharging the aesthetic sensibilities at the handy Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (that's Dutch for fine arts museum). The museum occupies the square into which Kloosterstraat dead-ends in the south and, given that over the centuries the local talent has included Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens, this is a detour well worth taking.

Back out on the street by 2 o'clock, the shops were not just open, but bursting onto the sidewalk, where many dealers had dragged some of their more commodious chairs and were transacting business on the street. Taking some sun while flipping through design magazines, the friends and theoretical business competitors Anita and Rita were quick to explain the easygoing attitude — and appeal — of the street.

“Of course the ‘real antiquaires' are up on Leopoldstraat,” said Anita, whose shop, Docks for Antiques, at No. 64, seems to sell everything from burnished mahogany furniture to garden sculptures and a few oddball 1930s mannequins. A distinct flourish in her pronunciation of the French term readily conjured images of exquisite treasures at excessively high prices a few blocks south of here.

“We're brocanteurs, selling pieces that are maybe not so old but are often very, very good,” she said. “Right now, you see lots of wonderful design from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s here.”

Rita, of the equally eclectic shop Delphic at No. 60, added: “It's a great mix — everything from kitsch to fine art. On Sundays, this is the place to be. Everyone finds something that's to their taste.”

In the carefully defined world of European antiques, brocante is a handy catchall term that means anything from vintage clothing and bric-a-brac to fine furniture and silver, typically less than 100 years old.

At Tita Flying Carpet (No. 86) it means that vintage kilims have been resurrected and resewn into graphic Mondrianesque compositions that play up the subtle color harmonies of their vegetable-dyed lambswool fragments. Were it a painting, the stunning 5-foot-by-7-foot rug in various shades of red on the wall at the back of the shop might have been titled: “Ode to Tomato Soup.”

A relative newcomer to the street is the Old and the Beautiful at No. 54, which specializes in Swedish antiques. The star of a museumlike display was a vignette with an elegantly carved Baroque armchair with original blue paint paired with a rare 17th-century “bockbord,” a massive slab of a table supported on two rustically carved tree trunks rather than four legs, that the dealer Geert de Bruuycker called “the mother of all Swedish tables” and priced accordingly at 12,500 euros ($16,828, at $1.37 to the euro).

After such a tightly edited display of clean-lined Scandinavian restraint, the packed-to-the-rafters t'Koetshuis next door at No. 52 is a like a pan-cultural tag sale with everything from a streamlined 1930s French dining set to heavily plated hotel silver and a stack of about 1,000 crisply pressed linen napkins, recently retired by a local restaurant supply company. Their original butterscotch color had mellowed by frequent washings and pressings into what can only be described as the perfect shade of wheat. At 0.50 euros apiece, I bought 50 and thus resolved a recurring dinner party woe for the foreseeable future.

Celebrating the event over a restorative coffee and delightful 3-euro feta and tomato panini at Take 5 Minutes in Paris (No. 50), I took 15 minutes of sun in the lushly planted rear patio. A neighboring table of art-world types huddled beneath a huge, fringed garden umbrella lined with a pattern of cabbage roses; the scene looked straight out of a Diane Arbus photo.

Musically, the shops on Kloosterstraat seem to be in league with one another in playing feel-good hits like “Vamos a la Playa” from decades past, no doubt increasing sales with the audio nostalgia. Between tracks of the Andrews Sisters at Erik Tonen Books (No. 48), a corgi sighed audibly as he plunked down to doze after realizing that his master was in fact going to read the entire book right there, right then.

Inside her theatrically lighted shop at No. 36, the dealer Barbara Annaert was busily greeting the stream of new and familiar faces drawn in by the gorgeous French trestle table she had cunningly matched up in the window with a set of slightly louche 1950s Windsor chairs. Sales were being made, but Barbara's role seemed more hostess than shopkeeper, although one who cheerily climbed on chairs to measure her chandeliers or snapped digital pictures to send by e-mail to clients.

Not for sale — but much commented on — was a stunning arrangement of overblown tulips the color of a tequila sunrise, adding to the sense that this was indeed a cocktail party.

But it's not all wine and roses. By late afternoon, the crowds can get thick and tempers short. On my second visit to the densely packed, tableware-centric shop Cru, at No. 19 on the perpendicular Sint-Michielstraat, my excessive touching of a set of glossy 1970s red dishes peeved the shop owner into doubling the price quoted me earlier that morning. Alerted to the discrepancy, he managed a half-smile and returned to his reading in the rear of the narrow shop. I was standing near the door, so I used it.

The meaner side of Kloosterstraat had also shown itself to Els Jansen, a onetime Antwerpener now living in nearby Ghent, who still returns to Kloosterstraat on many sunny Sundays. “We once foolishly passed on some chairs, and we're still looking for their replacements,” she said. Not one to give in to buyer's — or in this case nonbuyer's — remorse, she quickly added, “but the real fun here is just getting out and walking or grabbing a drink or a bite with friends.”

Anyone willing to heed that advice after a long day on the straat ought to head to Chez Fred (No. 83), where simple pine tables and stools outside offer a rustic counterpoint to the 300-euro sunglasses and trim Ann Demeulemeester tank tops worn by the style-conscious crews sitting at them. The menu swings in the same range — from hearty stoofvlees (savory beef stew) to tuna steak served rare with mint pesto. This being a perfect day, Norah Jones jazzily segued into Randy Crawford, whose “Street Life” got well-shod feet tapping and suntanned shoulders swaying:

“You dress, you walk, you talk. You're who you think you are.”

Well at least you've got the perfect napkins.