I use the raw editor in Photoshop to adjust exposure so that the highlights are not blown out, where the histogram will be off the scale to the right, and sometimes reduce the exposure a bit more if the image still looks too bright. Then I open the image in Photoshop and examine the histogram using the levels dialog. If there is blank space at either end, I will move that slider towards the center of the histogram until it touches the edge of the blank space. This has the effect of bringing out the colors, where the original image looked flat.
If the histogram is already distributed across most or all of the range, then I use the curves dialog, where I pull the diagonal line into a slight S curve, dragging down the curve in the lower quarter and slightly upward in the upper quarter. This also boosts colors.
I need to be careful not to be too aggressive in doing this, since the picture looks to high contrast for me. I usually don't apply both techniques to the same image for that reason.
I have a bunch of pictures up at
http://pbase.com/dwootton/dw that are the end result.
This link has some examples of what I'm doing.
http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/curves1.html