My husband and I grew up in Antwerp (the province; of which Antwerp city is the capital), but we now live in Gent. We love this city!
Gent is the capital city of East Flanders (Oost-Vlaanderen), another province of Belgium.
You should know that Belgium is divided into two by a 'language border'. The Northern half speaks 'Flemish' (= Dutch, but sounds softer, less gutteral) and the southern half speaks French. In Brussels, both languages are spoken. (There's also a small part of Belgium by the eastern border, where the people speak German.)
Belgium is a small and rainy country. It's well known for 'Godiva' chocolates, but I prefer the 'Leonidas' chocolates (pralines). (They're also less expensive.) My favourite kind of chocolate, however, is Côte D'Or, which you can buy in any supermarket. (I don't know if you can call it Belgian any more, for some crazy reason the Belgians sold the company to the Swiss.)
Our country is also known for fries (called 'french fries', because they were invented by a french speaking belgian) and for mussles. And yes, we usually eat our fries with mayonnaise! :-)
Brussels and Bruges are probably the two most famous cities of Belgium, but my favourite is Gent!
It has the beautiful old houses and waterways in the center of the city like Bruges, but you can see more belgians there than tourists (unlike Bruges).
Beer is maybe even more important to the Belgians than chocolate. There are over 1000 types of beer! Enjoy!