Taking a Cab to Taormina from Messina, Sicily

Most economical way would to take the train from Messina Centrale to Taormina for €4.80 per person vs. about $75-80 for a taxi. You’ll want to take a local cab from the station to the center of Taormina. Train takes about 45 minutes, same for a cab barring traffic - which at times is heavy in Messina .

Trains from the Messina Marittina station (which I assume is near the port) depart roughly hourly for Taormina-Giardini. The trip takes 63 to 87 minutes, and no transfer is required. There's a local bus that runs from the train station up to Taormina, though I'd be surprised if taxis were not always hanging around. However, I have pretty bad luck with getting charged reasonable fares when I take taxis away from bus and train stations (a problem in the US as well), so I try really hard to avoid doing that.

Surprising that the train from Messina to Taormina takes so long, a little over an hour. But then again, I was surprised that the Circumvesuviana from Sorrento to Naples took that amount of time as well. That one had about a million stops, much like a subway train in NYC or Chicago. Maybe it's the same for the Messina train.

Because a future trip of ours will involve taking the train on the ferry from Villa San Giovanni in Calabria across the Straits of Messina, then on to Taormina, I'd like to know if there is a train change at Messina to go on to Taormina/Giardini Naxos?

I think it depends on which train you tske.