's-Gravenzande 2

At the start of my collection of datestamps I tried to get at least one datestamp from every town with a post office of parcel point. On 16 June 2017 I had to visit one of the towns in my municipality and on my way there I stopped in 's‑Gravenzande to get the postmark from this city. The shop that housed the post office did not have a datestamp so I walked to the nearby supermarket that had a parcel point. I was the first one that asked for it and they had some trouble finding it. It was somewhere deep in a drawer, but eventually it emerged. I made the first impressions with this datestamp.

's-Gravenzande is a town in the province of South Holland, in the Netherlands. It is a part of the municipality of Westland, and lies about 12 km southwest of The Hague. Until 2004 it was a separate municipality and covered an area of 20.77 km². 's-Gravenzande was granted city rights in 1246 by Count William II of Holland who, just like his father Count Floris IV, regularly resided at his estate near the town. It is therefore the only "city" in Westland.

Machteld van Brabant, daughter of Duke Henry I and wife of Floris IV, was responsible for building the town's church, and gave it a Madonna statue to which miraculous powers were attributed. 's-Gravenzande subsequently became a pilgrimage site.

City/town:         's-Gravenzande

Municipality:     Westland

Area:                90,58 km² (Westland)

Population:       106.752 (Westland, August 2017)

Website:           gemeentewestland.nl

Parcel point

Hoogvliet 's-Gravenzande

Van Geeststraat 31

2692 AC  'S-GRAVENZANDE

facebook.com/Hoogvliet.sGravenzande

Date sent: 16 June 2017

Date postmark: 16 June 2017

Date received: 17 June 2017

Number of days: 1

Envelope in collection: 173