Blackbeard the Pirate really knew how to make an intimidating first impression.

He was like six five and he had pistols and cutlasses and everything draped all over him and then before he would go into battle he would light these fuses in his hair.

Coming up today on Travel with Rick Steves, we look at the legacy of the Pirates of the Carolinas.

On the Pacific coast, San Francisco's Victorian neighborhoods are said to be haunted by the ghosts of disappointed lovers.

I tend to think that she's there still waiting for him to come back.

While in Ireland...

Don't talk about him, don't mention them, and avoid the times at which they're most prevalent.

And those times are the borders between seasons, like Halloween, transition between autumn and winter.

We'll hear how the fairries of Ireland still pester the Irish today.

Up the airy mountain down the rushing glen, we dare not go a hunting for fear of little men.

It's all lurking just around the corner. go a haunting for fear of little men.

It's all lurking just around the corner on travel with Rick Steves. When I asked a couple of my friends from Ireland to join us on the show to talk about their country's legends of fairies and banches and things that go bump in the night,

they were a little reluctant at first.

I thought it was because they didn't want to appear superstitious or maybe out of date

and that's what they wanted me to believe.

But I wonder if they weren't just a little afraid.

Coming up today on Travel with Rick Steves, we hear how the Irish

accommodate tales they grew up with of fairy folk lurking in their surroundings, and

why they're testing their luck right now by making an exception to talk openly about it with us.

We'll also explore San Francisco's legends of ghost sightings,

from Al Capone on Alcatraz, to a grieving mother who still wanders Golden Gate Park.

Let's start with some wild tales of historical characters from the coasts of North and South Carolina.

...