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........

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