Stazione di Taormina-Giardini (Taormina-Giardini Station), Taormina

Stazione di Taormina-Giardini (Taormina-Giardini Station) is one of the main stations of the Messina-Syracuse railway line.

The station was designed as part of the railway construction program undertaken by the Vittorio Emanuele Company in Sicily which planned to connect the extreme north of Sicily and the port of Messina to the productive areas of the eastern Ionian coast by railway. The station was built in the space between two tunnels in the area below the town of Taormina, adjacent to State Road 114 (East of Sicily), about one km before the beginning of the town of Giardini, in the hamlet of Villagonia; took the name of the closest locality, Giardini, but that of Taormina was soon added, more distant but in whose municipality the passenger building, originally a small building with a modest appearance both in terms of size and quality of services offered.

It was inaugurated on December 12, 1866, at the same time as the opening of the Messina - Giardini railway section of the Messina-Syracuse railway, the second section of which was inaugurated the following year. On 3 January 1867 it was in fact connected to the Catania station.

The Taormina-Giardini station consists of a valuable building in neo-Gothic style with a central body raised to two floors, flanked by two elongated lateral bodies. The external façade is enriched in the central body by two crenellated towers arranged symmetrically with respect to the central body. The entrance is protected by an artistic wrought iron canopy. The drawing takes up the architectural motifs of the demolished Castle of Villagonia by elaborating them. The arched and pointed arch windows recall motifs from the medieval past that can be traced back to the Catalan-Sicilian Gothic.

The internal rooms are furnished with dark wooden furniture in the Sicilian style of the late nineteenth century. The walls and ceilings of the station rooms are embellished with frescoes and relief decorations by Salvatore Gregorietti from Palermo who also supervised the creation of stained glass windows and wrought iron furnishings .

The station is harmoniously framed in the surrounding landscape, placed as it is at the foot of the fortress of Taormina, on an embankment overlooking the beautiful bay of Naxos.