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Go West Tours

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Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

GO WEST TOURS (Melbourne) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go

Go West Tours

• See all photos

Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Go West Tours - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024) - Tripadvisor

Go West Tours

• See all photos

Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Go West Tours - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

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Melbourne day tours.

Join us on one of our day trips from Melbourne and gaze at the spectacular Twelve Apostles at sunset, watch the world’s cutest penguins waddling ashore on Phillip Island and hear the roar of impressive waterfalls in the Grampians National Park. Or perhaps sip & sample on a tour to the Yarra Valley and take in Melbourne’s amazing sights on a City Discovery tour. Find our more about our Melbourne tours below!

Great Ocean Road Small Group Eco Tour

Explore the awesome scenery of the Great Ocean Road. Visit picturesque townships & stunning beaches. Wonder at the majesty of the 12 Apostles & Loch Ard Gorge.

Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tour

Visit the colourful Brighton Beach Boxes, meet native wildlife at an award-winning Conservation Park, and end your tour with the captivating nightly Penguin Parade.

Grampians National Park Day Tour

Our Grampians day tour takes in impressive waterfalls, spectacular lookouts boasting panoramic views & plentiful native wildlife. This is truly a nature-lover's paradise!

Yarra Valley Gourmet Tour

While the Yarra Valley is a world-renowned wine growing region, wine is only half the story of this gourmet wonderland. Our tour provides a fine blend of the very best of the region’s wines and other gourmet produce.

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour

Savour Australia's most stunning views at the perfect time of day. Boasting stunning coastal scenery, rich history & iconic sights, this is a truly unforgettable day trip.

Penguins Express Tour

Explore Melbourne's inner city area & learn about our iconic landmarks & fascinating history before heading to Phillip Island to watch the amazing Penguin Parade.

Wilsons Promontory Day Tour

Reconnect with nature's beauty at Australia's best-kept secret - "The Prom". Squeaky Beach, Mount Bishop walk with summit views, wildlife spotting & more!

Melbourne City Discovery Tour

Discover Melbourne, a city of enchanting gardens, lively eateries, captivating arcades, and a thriving arts scene. Immerse yourself in the essence of this remarkable city.

Melbourne Magic: City Discovery + Penguin Parade Tour

Explore the great ocean road, phillip island & the grampians.

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We’re proudly Melbourne’s most highly-rated tour operator. We show you places in ways others don’t & that’s why we have over 8000 5-star Google reviews

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Your comfort and safety are important to us, so we’ve fitted  upgraded seating  to our touring vehicles.

Our guides are highly trained specialists and are passionate about helping our guests create amazing Australian travel memories.

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If you find one of our tours being advertised elsewhere at a lower price, let us know and we’ll beat it by 10%!

We pay our respects to them and their elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge that this land was never ceded.

We are privileged to learn from them in the way we care for and share Australia’s diverse nature and culture, and we strive to walk humbly in the footsteps of those who have walked these paths before us.

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208 Little Collins St, Melbourne, Vic 3000

10/167 Beavers Road, Northcote VIC 3070

Email: [email protected] Phone: +61 39485 5290

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Go West Tours started out of a passion for the American West and with the vision to share that passion with other people: avid explorers as well as more relaxed vacationers.  Our destination expertise grew throughout the years and now includes the United States and Canada. 

We have staff based throughout the USA, Canada and across the globe so that we can connect with our clients quickly and efficiently.

We customize products for Leisure and Incentive Groups, as well as individual clientele (FITs). These are sold only through travel professionals, such as Travel Agencies and Tour Operators.

With over 30 years of experience and offices in three continents, we are now one of the most recognized Destination Management Companies and Tour Operators for the North American destinations.   

‘Grand Tour’ Review: Miguel Gomes’ Dreamy, Delirious Time-Swirling Travelogue Through East and Southeast Asia

Bristling with life and song and revelatory collisions between cultures and timeframes, the Portuguese master's Cannes Competition title is a healing balm for trying times.

By Jessica Kiang

Jessica Kiang

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All we know is that, when this low-level British diplomat (who, like all the British characters, whether they hail from London or pine for Yorkshire, speaks in Portuguese) shows up at Mandalay train station, it is 1918, near midnight and he is drunk. The next day, when he goes to pick Molly up from her arriving steamship, his nerve suddenly fails, and before he even claps eyes on her, he scarpers onto the next ship bound for Singapore.

This is the story of “Grand Tour,” but it is not the half of “Grand Tour.” From the beginning, Gomes’ eccentric, puckish sensibilities are in evidence, with every beautifully rendered black-and-white, period-set interior alternating with bustling, bristling contemporary footage of the various towns and countries featured. Between 1918 and now, some of them have changed their names — Burma is now Myanmar, Siam is now Thailand — but none have changed their spirit, a fact that the seemingly reckless but actually deceptively meticulous construction makes clear.

Sometimes in color, sometimes in monochrome, with the narrators speaking the local lingo and knitting Edward and Molly’s colonial-era stories into the Asia of today, we get gorgeous on-the-fly snapshots of modern life across the continent. A rickety Rangoon ferris wheel propelled by hand (and foot). Workers untangling the wires atop Saigon’s overloaded telephone poles. Old Chinese men playing mahjong; Filipino locals riding tuktuks; Lunar New Year fireworks exploding over the Saigon skyline; a portly man in a restaurant moving himself to tears with his karaoke rendition of “My Way” before returning to his noodles, dabbing at wet eyes.

The film also has a recurring motif in the puppet shows that seemingly every culture has developed, and developed differently, as a storytelling medium. There are marionettes and paper silhouettes and two-person representations of — are they turkeys? Ostriches? Who knows? But that we always see the puppeteers as much as we see their puppets seems appropriate to the sense we get, throughout this overflowing cornucopia of worldly pleasures, of a single intelligence, a particular curiosity and a uniquely skewed sense of humor unifying so much that, in our darker moods, might seem actually to divide us.

Gomes shot this extraordinary film in an extraordinary way. Hampered by Covid-era restrictions, a lot of the modern footage — credited to three cinematographers in Rui Poças, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and Guo Liang — was directed remotely, while the period segments, whether in bamboo forests or Raffles Hotel or aboard a ship whose captain speaks in six different languages over the mooing of a cargo hold full of cows, were creations on a sound stage. But even aside from the occasional deliberate anachronism — like a cellphone dropped in a forest when Molly is on the verge of catching up to Edward — and despite the brash collisions of stock and style, and scripted fiction and found-footage reality, “Grand Tour” is a remarkably coherent, if richly complex experience.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Competition). May 22, 2024. Running time: 129 MIN.

• Production: (Portugal-Italy-France) An Uma Pedra no Sapato production in co-production with Vivo film, Shellac, Cinéma Defacto. (World sales: Match Factory, Cologne.) Producer: Filipa Reis. Executive Producer: João Miller Guerra. Co-producers: Marta Donzelli, Gregorio Paonessa, Thomas Ordonneau, Tom Dercourt. 
• Crew: Director: Miguel Gomes. Screenplay: Mariana Ricardo, Telmo Churro, Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes. Camera: Rui Poças, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Guo Liang. Editors: Telmo Churro, Pedro Filipe Marques.
• With: Crista Alfaiate, Gonçalo Waddington, Cláudio da Silva, Lang Khê Tran. (Portuguese, Chinese, Thai, French, Burmese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Japanese dialogue)

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Go West Tours

• See all photos

Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Go West Tours - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

Go West Tours

• See all photos

Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

GO WEST TOURS (Melbourne) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go

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Rusmania • Deep into Russia

Out of the Centre

Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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Go West Tours - Melbourne

• See all photos

Phillip Island Penguin, Brighton Beach, Moonlit Sanctuary from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Great Ocean Road Sunset Tour from Melbourne

Grampians National Park Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne

Yarra Valley Gourmet Small-Group Ecotour from Melbourne

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Go West Tours - All You MUST Know Before You Go (2024)