Wismar: The scenic German city that inspired a horror classic

More than a century after its medieval centre served as the backdrop of Nosferatu, a new Oscar-nominated remake is putting this Gothic city back on the map.

I gasp. A gaunt vampire with menacing fingernails on the prow of a schooner looms before me, sending a chill up my spine.

I'm standing before the Wassertor gate in Wismar, a windswept gabled and red-brick Gothic city on northern Germany's Baltic coast. I had been wandering the cobblestone streets leading from the harbour towards the city's medieval, Unesco-inscribed centre, when my eye caught the small plaque bearing a stylised vampire that stopped me in my tracks.

I've come to Wismar to trace one shadow of Germany's dark past – the legacy of my German Jewish grandfather, Berthold Levi, who left behind a secret love child when he escaped Nazi Germany in 1937. But in retracing his steps and visiting my half-cousins, I've stumbled upon another shadow: that of Count Orlok, a vampire who terrorised these very streets more than a century ago. That's because Wismar isn't just a fetching medieval city; it's also the legendary setting of director FW Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.

Soon after I come face to face with the pint-sized vampire, my half-cousin Katharina leads me towards two other markers commemorating where Murnau shot some of cinema's most haunting scenes in this 13th-Century city: one at the sprawling Marktplatz square, where an ornate pavilion-like tower rises overhead; and another near the modest Holy Spirit Church, home to a beautiful garden.

A loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the silent film follows German real estate agent Thomas Hutter on his journey to Transylvania to meet Count Orlok. The vampire, mesmerised by Hutter's blood and a photograph of his wife Ellen, follows him back to the fictional "Wisborg" (Wismar), where he spreads plague and death until Ellen sacrifices herself, luring the vampire into the lethal rays of dawn.

The film's success, however, came at a cost. Stoker's widow sued the production company for copyright infringement and German courts ordered every copy of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Yet, like Count Orlok himself, the film refused to die: a few copies had already been made and were circulating in Europe.

And still,it refuses to rest. Robert Eggers' reimagined 2024 Nosferatu film, starring Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgård, breathed new life into the eternal tale. While Prague's Barrandov Studios stand in for Wismar, the adaptation honours Murnau's nightmarish vision and is up for four Academy Awards on 2 March.

Nosferatu's reach even extends to my current lodgings. In my half-cousin Alexander's home, a coffin greets visitors in the foyer, daggers and a taxidermy bat adorn the wall and fake spiders and cobwebs cling to every surface. I'd initially dismissed it as some kind of quirky goth aesthetic, but after eyeing the Nosferatu plaques, I wonder: is it an homage?

I'm quickly realising that, more than a century later, Wismar still relishes its role as the real-life setting behind one of horror's most enduring tales.

Today, Wismar remains refreshingly crowd-free, welcoming mostly Germans to enjoy the brief Baltic summer. Its tourism season begins in March with Herring Days (15-30 March 2025), when "the whole market square smells of fried herring", says the head of Wismar Tourism, Sibylle Donath, drawing locals out like fresh blood for Count Orlok.

One of the few times in recent memory when visitors did flock to this relatively quiet, 44,000-person city was in 2022 when Wismar (and much of Germany) celebrated Nosferatu's centennial with creativity and gusto. A Berlin museum hosted on-site blood donations. Konstanz held a lakeside production. In the nearby city of Lübeck, where parts of the film were also shot, an illuminated Nosferatu-themed window installation was displayed in the warehouses that Count Orlok intended to purchase.

In Wismar, the city organised guided bat walks and the film was screened more than 50 times across many landmark venues. At the 13th-Century St George's Church, a Nosferatu theatre experience attracted 4,000 visitors. The city also launched Nosferatour, an immersive outdoor theatre production that's expected to return in 2026 where visitors follow towering papier-mache puppets through the city's medieval streets. And Festspiele, a classical music festival that organises about 190 concerts annually in the surrounding Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, hosted an extraordinary open-air event and screening in the harbour where Count Orlok's ship arrives.

"The harbour scene in Nosferatu is iconic," Ursula Haselböck, the director of Festspiele, told the BBC. "Wismar's maritime history and old Hanseatic architecture create a very special atmosphere. You can almost imagine Nosferatu creeping through the streets – it's definitely best explored in daylight!"

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Now, just three years after the centennial, Wismar is gearing up to welcome even more Nosferatu fans. "The new Nosferatu film [is reawakening interest] in the Hanseatic city of Wismar," Donath said. "We are expecting tourists from abroad and also younger German-speaking guests. We are prepared: we have English-speaking guides and all people working in [the] tourism sector speak English too, as [do] many inhabitants."

Nosferatu-themed tours of Wismar with an English-speaking guide are available upon request from March through October. For an especially memorable experience, Donath recommends  requesting a guide in costume carrying a coffin. Visitors can also retrace Orlok's footsteps through a two-kilometre self-guided walking tour that extends from the Marktplatz square to the harbour.

Of course, there's more to Wismar than Nosferatu. Situated at the southern tip of the Baltic Sea and a member of the Hanseatic League (a medieval network of maritime traders spread across central and northern Europe) Wismar's connection to the sea remains strong. Today, it's a major German shipbuilding hub.

"The water connects, but it also divides," says Donath, noting how the city's position has shaped its destiny from a powerful Hanseatic port to a former Swedish territory. The city was under Swedish rule from 1648 to 1803 (a legacy still visible in its Baroque architecture) and celebrates its multicultural heritage in an annual Swedish Festival each August.

After tracing Orlok's footsteps through Wismar's half-timbered homes, Katharina and I hop aboard the Poeler Kogge "Wissemara", a floating museum that's a replica of a 14th-Century Hanseatic cog ship. These boats, carrying up to 300 tons of freight, fuelled the Hanseatic League's economic power and propelled the growth of North and Baltic Sea cities. (The Wissemara offers a number of educational sailing journeys, including three-hour cruises of the Wismar Bay and sailing to the island of Lieps to see seals.)

After learning how to tie sailing knots from the crew, I look back to the harbour. For a moment, it is easy to imagine Nosferatu's culminating scene, when Orlok's vessel drifts into Wismar's port, plague-infested rats are released and Orlok carries his coffin through the Wassertor towards Hutter's home. As the water shimmers in the late-afternoon sun and the brick-red harbour turns tangerine, I'm reminded of what Donath told me: "We would love to share our city with more of the world." 

Perhaps soon, it will.

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