Poles queue for 'paczki' doughnuts on Fat Thursday

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2008

WARSAW (AFP) — Lengthy queues grew in front of pastry shops in Warsaw on "Fat Thursday" as Poles bought-up lip-smacking, plump traditional Polish "paczki" ahead of the Christian period of Lent.

"It a great excuse to eat as many doughnuts as you want," Marzena, 31, told AFP.

"Ten isn't too many today," said Marzena, a Warsaw lawyer who declined to give her surname.

She had been waiting for well over an hour in a 200-person queue in front of a popular shop in the city's swish central Nowy Swiat shopping street.

"It's a very pleasant tradition - but you can't exaggerate and eat to many or there will be serious consequences," said 70-year-old optician Wojtek, adding that queuing on Fat Thursday was a "family tradition."

Instead of having holes in...