I want to buy some LTC's, and park them for a while - assuming it will rise as well.
What's the best software to store the keys on (wallet) as well as any sites out there like bitaddress - for generation of paper copy?
Generally - is this a good or bad idea?

cheers,
M

Fully agree with Kluge, online cold storage will really ensure safety of your wallet. (and make that two, for redundancy)
Av is nice to have, but only catches "known" malware. Also malware could check your favorites/browser history, and prepare an html injection, to change recipient address.
Also, good malware can hide pretty deep inthe system (root kit) and w/out serious forensic, will  not be found
And I am sure other scams apply too, like Search engine optimisation: "donate to phillipines victims to this address",
or pretending to be from your favorite trading site: " as requested, here the CORRECT address from the transaction, that you initiated and failed at 2:34 pm today"

And yes, always triple check the address, (simply checking last 4 charactes should do, because fraudster can not generate addresses that look even slightly the same)

So it all depends on how much value you want to protect and how much effort the attacker wants to put in, to rob you.

I am new to all this, and want to start buying some BTC and then trade them with other currencies.. Figuring it is safe to go to a reputable exchange (after reading many posts here, I came to that conclusion anyway)so I registered at https://btc-e.com
BUT: I am not willing to invest 500€ to a "website", first I want to learn more about it, make sure this stuff works the way they say it does. Then I will invest more.
Doesn't that seem extremely high? Anybody else agrees?

What other options do I have - where can I buy BTC safely?
I need to do Euros, could be cc or SEPA or paypal. (But I don't want to deal with another emoney yet, just to first learn about BTC etc.)