200 Miles per Hour in the French Countryside

We took the TGV (France's famous high speed train) to the Champagne district this morning.  Took 40 minutes to travel 90 miles - we were going 200 MPH at one point (yes, this feel very fast).  We toured the only place in the world where Champagne is made (if it's made anywhere else, including anywhere else in France, they have to call it Sparkling Wine).  We got deep (20 meters) into the bowels of the earth in soil made (mostly) of chalk.  We spent time at Moet Chandon/Dom Perignon and Taittengiers, all three highly acclaimed labels.  The Moet complex has over 27 miles of caves below their mansion above. We will win any game of trivial pursuit that includes the category "Champagne".

The Champagne district, northeast of Paris, has suffered immensely over the centuries with more wars than you could possibly imagine - from the barbarians, to the French Revolution, to WWI and then WWII - and yet these people rebuild and keep going forward, over and over.  We were in a church that has been destroyed more times than you can count - they rebuilt the thing using the bottoms of the original pillars which remarkably were still there 700 years later.  This church

is where Dom Perignon was buried (a humble monk who kinda figured out how to make champagne - I wonder if he drank much of it?)  

The church was, remarkably, about 20 degrees colder than outside.  How does THAT happen?  

Here are a couple pics taken from inside the wine caves (originally dug out by the Romans 2000 years ago). The last pic was taken this evening; it's the Saint Jacques Tower here in Paris.